Beware of False Profits
Defence Minister and Nova Scotia political turncoat, Peter MacKay, jumped to the defense of fellow party member Loyola Hearn while in Newfoundland and Labrador this week saying Hearn is getting an unfairly rough ride at home.
"Sometimes you know, a prophet is least appreciated in his own land," said MacKay, while visiting the province over the weekend.
"He has shown tremendous leadership around the cabinet table … I think Loyola Hearn deserves a great deal of credit not only for what he brings to the cabinet table but what he brings to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador."
When Mr. MacKay speaks of what Loyola Hearn "brings to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador" surely must be referring to the shame, disgust and outright betrayal felt by so many in the province. What else is there?
Betrayal on the removal of offshore revenues from the equalization formula (as promised by Stephen Harper).
Disgust for Hearn's claims that he has spies inside the provincial caucus who are informing him of the inner workings of the Premier's office.
Shame that a native son would walk away from his own promises to protect the fisheries by invoking custodial management of the offshore.
We've all heard of the Anti-Christ, and I'm not saying Mr. Hearn deserves that moniker, but to borrow Mr. Mackay's analogy, Mr. Hearn is perhaps closer to being an anti or false profit than the real deal.
During his time in the province Mr. MacKay also dismissed the "Anyone but Conservative" campaign being levelled at the Conservatives in the next federal election. I suspect however that with his inability to recognize the facts around Hearn and around his own status in Nova Scotia, Mr. Mackay is shooting for an unholy trinity of idiocy.
5 comments:
Myles
I hope that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are not expecting Peter McKay to deliver any Federal goodies to our province. The McKay Dynasty has been ruling Nova Scotia for 40 years and the improvements that the McKay Dynasty has brought to their home province, despite Nova Scotia's very few natural resources are formidable.
I lived in Nova Scotia in the 1970s and the changes which have occurred there since that time are unbelievable compared to what changes have occurred in the economy of our province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and despite the vast natural resources that were present in our province.
What we need are astute politicians, both Federal and Provincial to be constantly on the ball for their province, like Nova Scotia's politicians, to make sure that we here in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador get our fair share of what is being doled out by Ottawa, so as to make improvements in the economy and infrastructure of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Do Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans think that Peter McKay is keeping a watch over things for us? You can bet your bottom dollar that he isn't and his prime and only focus in the Federal political realm is to man the 'look-out' department for his own province Nova Scotia. And might I add, that is what he was elected to do. He is not doing anything wrong. He is doing a great job for the Nova Scotians who elected him.
Of course that is the reason Nova Scotia has blossomed into a bigger economy with much more clout than our province, and, again might I add, with less resources. It is because Nova Scotia's politicians eyes were constantly scanning the horizon of Ottawa for anything that was about to come down the chute. His eyes were focused on the goodies which were coming down the chute, which would have enhanced any province’s economy and as a result of such focus Nova Scotia was the victor. Peter McKay will never ever be looking out for improvements for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, not even if it is a Newfoundland and Labrador resource which comes up for development, he will want it to go to Nova Scotia or maybe some other province of Canada. Can anyone fault him for that? That is exactly what he was elected to do. AND WE ELECTED OUR NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR POLITICIANS TO DO THE SAME, BUT THEY DIDN’T. SHAME ON THEM!
The position which Nova Scotia holds at the moment, as been the Capital of Eastern Canada, should be in Newfoundland and Labrador, since our province is right on the Eastern edge of North America and we hold control over a vast amount of the Atlantic Ocean out to the 200 mile limit. Since Labrador is connected to the continent, why should the province of Newfoundland and Labrador not have gotten that distinction? Why should Canada/Ottawa have all that space east of Nova Scotia out to the Atlantic Ocean without any clout in Canada, especially when Canadians dreamed of having that territory since 1867, but only claimed jurisdiction over it in 1949? Yes, Why? Did it have anything to do, I wonder with weak politicians or politicians who were not willing to exert their clout in a Parliament which was supposed to be fair and equal?
Thanks for the comment Agnes. I don't for a minute think that Peter Mackay or any federal official for that matter (including Loyola Hearn, Fabian manning or Norm Doyle) are going to look out for Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't believe most people in the province are gullible enough to beleive that either.
While I agree that Nova Scotia has faired slightly better than NL I must disagree with you when you say that Mr. Mackay is doing his job in looking out for his province. In my opinion if he truly was doing his job he would not have stood idly by while his party's promises on equalization and the Atlantic Accords were walked away from. He would not have left fellow NS MP Bill Casey to twist in the wind and be expelled from the Tory caucus for standing up for the province and he would not be spending his time travelling around (as our own NL MPs are doing) doling out small funding announcements in an attempt to buy votes leading up to the next federal election.
MacKay, like his bretheren, is nothing more than a self serving politician who is looking out for himself and his future, not that of the people who put him in office.
Hearn made his choice on the budget vote.
What MacKay, Harper, Hearn and the rest don't realize yet is that the public is not a gullible and easily fooled as they used to be. Times have changed and they better start getting used to it.
CBC News is reporting today that MacKay's explanation that the promised military expansion in Labrador will take more time isn't washing with union union leaders there.
MacKay said Friday that the federal Conservatives remain committed to a pre-election pledge to station an army battalion and unmanned aerial vehicles at 5 Wing Goose Bay, in central Labrador.
However, MacKay said Canada's commitment to the war in Afghanistan takes precedence over that promise.
"We'll deliver when the time is right, and we'll do so in keeping with other military priorities — that's all I can say," MacKay said while visiting Harbour Grace.
Bernie Bolger, president of the Union of National Defence Employees local, said he wants to hear something more substantial from MacKay, including details on when the expansion will launch.
"I'm glad that he's committed to us but I think it's time that he put the money in here," said Bolger, whose union represents about 300 workers at the air base in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
Bolger said bases in other parts of the country have been given a boost since the Conservatives took power in 2006. He said even a promise made later that year — to send a reconnaissance team to Labrador — has not yet been met.
"I know Afghanistan is expensive … but it doesn't cost that much to bring 33 people, they told us, to see what's required," he said.
Bolger said the union has written to MacKay as well as Loyola Hearn, Newfoundland and Labrador's federal cabinet representative, to ask for a meeting, as well as written commitments on the expansion of the base.
All I can say to the union folks in Labrador is good for you. Don't cave in and don't fall for the lies the government is trying to spoon feed you.
Yes Hearne did as did Efford and Manning, Doyle, Gerry Byrne, Scott Simms etc etc all who came before and all who will come after who are part of a national party.
It isn't the national parties we need to change it is the system and that will never happen as long as we keep electing national party representatives which have to toe the national party line of doing what's in the best interest of the majority of canadians 60% of which live in ON/QU to get elected or re-elected.
If Hearne or any of the other false prophets Benedict Arnolds covers were to not toe the national party line they would be kicked out of their party and have to sit as independents.
Now if we had a nationalist party like the NL-First party up there in the HOC any national party MP that does get elected would have an option if he or she was threatened with dismissal from the national party to cross the floor to join with the NL-First party.
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