Fight with the Feds Won't End Soon

Just in case you didn't see it, the following is an article published in the Nova Scotia paper, "The Chronicle Herald" today. I guess Newfoundlanders and Labradorians aren't the only ones who feel betrayed by the Harper crime syndicate, as much as so called national papers like the Globe and Mail and National Post might try to make it look that way.

At least the people of Nova Scotia are rightfully outraged and saying so, even it their Conservative Premier is still more than willing to bow to the whims of his party's national body.

The people of Atlantic Canada should all stand together and let Ottawa know we are tired of being forced to sit in the back of the bus.

I'd encourage anyone in the St. John's area this Friday May 11th to go to the Confederation Building at 12:00 noon and show their support for the province by attending the "Stand Up For Newfoundland and Labrador" rally that day. See you there.

Cheers,
Myles

Fight with Feds Won’t End Soon
By MARILLA STEPHENSON

DON’T KID YOURSELF into believing federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty came to Halifax this week to score points with Nova Scotians in the wake of the Harper government’s betrayal of our offshore accord. There’s no rush to mend fences here or to save the political backsides of the province’s three measly Conservative MPs.

Nope, with the federal Conservatives dipping marginally below the Liberals in national polling this week for the first time in months, to say nothing of the ongoing debacle over the torture of Taliban detainees after they had been transferred from the custody of Canadian soldiers, there will be no more talk of a spring election any time soon. But what better time to try to firm up support in seat-rich Ontario, or even the West, by coming to town to deliver a neat spanking to those welfare Novies looking for "double equalization," as the outraged Flaherty puffed on Wednesday afternoon.

There is no panic to make a deal, and Flaherty has no intention of making any agreement with this province that he will have to match in Newfoundland and Labrador, where outraged Premier Danny Williams has declared political war against the Harper Conservatives since the federal budget came out in March.

After Flaherty’s meeting with acting Finance Minister Angus MacIsaac, it was announced that a further meeting would take place. Still, the federal minister was pretty clear in saying he wouldn’t budge on his decision to break the equalization promise in the 2005 accord — though he didn’t exactly describe it like that.

"It isn’t double equalization that’s on the table. It’s one or the other," Flaherty told reporters at a news conference after the meeting. He was referring to the no-win choice: Nova Scotia must either opt into the new and improved equalization formula or stick with the old one while not being penalized for receiving offshore accord revenues.

One day later, Premier Rodney MacDonald took a crack at Prime Minister Stephen Harper while levelling his strongest criticism yet against the federal Conservatives.

At a speech at a Nova Scotia Tory fundraising dinner in Halifax on Thursday night, MacDonald said that after months of "promising to fix the fiscal imbalance — ‘fix it for a generation’ was the promise — we were given two options: Either keep the accord or give it up in order to gain new equalization dollars.

"This was not what we expected. Not after months of supporting the agenda of Canada’s new government. Not after supporting their efforts at Senate reform, strengthening our military and removing internal trade barriers."

"It was not what we expected after the current prime minister championed our cause when he was in opposition — and we thank him for that support. What we expected was the government of Canada to live up to its agreement."

"What we got was something completely different."

MacDonald noted that Nova Scotia responsibly applied the full $830-million payment from the accord to our provincial debt, and described the accord as this province’s opportunity to move beyond the need for equalization through a federally supported economic development program not unlike Ontario’s auto pact or Alberta’s oil rights in the 1950s.

"I don’t believe they understand how keeping the carrot perpetually out of our reach will ensure that Nova Scotia remains forever on the fringes of this prosperous and great nation," he said of the federal Conservatives.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I will make them understand. I will make them understand that the accord was intended as our ticket out of equalization. And I will make them understand that a deal is a deal is a deal."

All of this is fine and good, but I suspect the solution for both Flaherty and MacDonald might lie in the issue to which the premier segued next: the Atlantic Gateway proposal that would see Nova Scotia developed as a central transportation link from North America to Europe and Western Asia.

Federal investment in this province for the gateway would enable Harper and Flaherty to throw us a few bones while allowing them to continue thumbing their noses at the rightly aggrieved Williams.

It’s not pretty and it’s not right. The gateway is a proposal Ottawa should be supporting in this province regardless of the dispute over the offshore accord. None of us is naive enough to think, however, that the federal government would refuse to use gateway funding as the next political carrot to dangle before this province.

MacDonald described the gateway concept as a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to redirect existing trade routes to the benefit of this province. Once-in-a-generation opportunity, eh? Funny, I remember when premiers used to say that about our offshore resources.

Poor Johnathon

Transcontinental newspapers published a commentary yesterday I thought you might appreciate. Hopefully some of its points will not be lost on all the anon posters on this site and on other ill informed Canadians.

Enjoy.

Poor Jonathan
By Andy Barker
The Advertiser

Newfoundlanders need hides like elephants in order to thwart off the seemingly endless insulting jokes and disparaging comments.

A few years ago, a Toronto columnist Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail) described Newfoundland as a vast and scenic welfare ghetto. She was not the first upalong to cast snide remarks our way, and sadly she is not the last. Margaret now has the company of a fellow Toronto columnist, Jonathan Kay.

Jonathan is no greenhorn journalist, but an award-winning columnist and editor at the National Post. The native Montrealer is no slouch with metallurgy degrees in engineering from McGill, and a law degree from Yale. He has worked overseas as well as freelanced articles for major U.S. newspapers and magazines.

Jonathan's swipe was an editorial "Maitres chez Newf" in the April 26, National Post. Kay poked fun at the throne speech in which the Williams government expressed its intention that Newfoundland and Labrador be the master of its own house. Kay said that as Canada's poorest province we only survive due to transfers - handouts from Ottawa. Williams he sees as "The surly teenager haranguing his parents over the size of his allowance."

Kay ended with "Either they're rugged individualist proud of their identity and self-reliance. Or they're professional welfare cases, endlessly harassing the rest of us for more handouts."

Poor Jonathan. He has the degrees, awards, and the big job at
the National Post, but he still knows diddly-squat about the Newfoundland economy, people and history.

Jonathan's blatant use welfare, handouts, and allowances all reinforce that jaded image of us as die-hard lazy lushes, out of work, and on the bum as usual. Welfare, handouts, and allowances paint a totally false picture of the Newfoundland economy.

If poor Jonathan had done a little googling, he could have easily learned that our unemployment rate, which can spike upwards due to the seasonal fisheries, is now at 14 per cent. But a minimum of 80 per cent of our work force works year round, year in, year out. Our weekly earnings are nearly in fourth place, and our hot economy (oil driven) is one of the national leaders with an 8.5 per cent growth rate. As well, in 1997-98 we depended upon Ottawa for nearly 44 per cent of our budget. But in the 2007-8 budget estimates we are indeed becoming masters of our house with Ottawa's share now down to less than 29 per cent.

Last year we poor Newfoundlanders managed to spend $6 billion
on retail products that were either manufactured or distributed from Ontario and Quebec. That retail spending will no doubt increase this year due to the tax cuts, and our oil, mining, fishing, and forestry industries will continue to buy all sorts of equipment and parts from the mainland. We keep a goodly chunk of the crowd upalong in a job - and that's surely good- as well as fatten the profits at corporate head offices in Toronto and Montreal.

As a foreign exchange earner Newfoundland has always been one of the tops since 1949. Yankee money poured in here via their four military bases, plus we exported minerals, newsprint, and fish to them and to overseas markets to earn even more foreign currency.

Many of those same exports are now augmented by offshore oil - in its infancy stage - which is sold into the U.S. market. Nickel exports from Labrador with the likelihood of more mines in Labrador and on the island bode well for future exports.

And Labrador's lower Churchill (the upper Churchill is a huge profit maker for Jonathan's native Quebec) has the juice that Ontario Hydro would love to have. Even the fisheries with all its woes still earns a good buck for the national economy. And not to be forgotten are the millions earned each year by Navcan as hundreds of daily flights, to and from Europe, as they crisscross our sky.

On top of the wealth that is generated here, Newfoundlanders upalong are doing fine. Imagine the state of the Alberta and Ontario economies if migrant Newfoundlanders put down their tools be it the wrench, shovel, stethoscope, or laptop and came home? Image the chaos in the armed forces if General Rick Hillier and the thousands of his fellow Newfoundlanders suddenly retired? And how dull would the Canadian airwaves be without the likes of Rex Murphy, Rick Mercer, Bob Cole, and Mary Walsh?

Maitre chez nous - masters of our own house - was Quebec's quiet revolution rallying cry. But unlike Newfoundland, Quebec was never a nation. Perhaps poor Jonathan is unaware that we had our own prime ministers, army, currency, stamps, customs office, Rhodes scholar designation, and our own war memorial in France. Even Canada's Vimy memorial was designed by Walter Allward the son of Newfoundlanders who moved to Toronto many years ago.

If the well educated, like poor Jonathan, can't get their facts straight and do a good critical analysis, then the common folk uplong must believe that what is said about us, must be true.

Perhaps, that ingrained, prolonged, disparaging attitude towards us, steeped into the mainland conscious, nurtured by erroneous writers, will force us to opt for nationhood once again.

But this time, along with our pride, we have the wealth in so many ways be it the environment, education facilities, the arts community, and an ever-growing robust economy to go it, alone. And, dear poor Jonathan, Canada would be the biggest looser - not us!

Flaherty Visits Nova Scotia to Talk Accord Discord.

According to news reports out of Nova Scotia Federal Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, is in that province for meetings over the Atlantic Accord and the impacts his recent budget will have on the economy there.

Reports suggest that the visit may have come about because of the strong reaction in Atlantic Canada over the contents of his recent equalization plan and after unconfirmed reports that East Coast MPs are beginning to revolt inside the party and may well be prepared to turn against their own government.

The Federal Finance Department is being very tight lipped and the Nova Scotia finance department won't even confirm that meetings are taking place. The sudden use of a cone of silence combined with a rare calmness and relaxed demeanor exhibited by outspoken Newfoundland and Labrador Premier, Danny Williams, during national media interviews on Tuesday, have led many to speculate that something may happening behind the scenes. It appears the equalization issue has caused a rift inside the Conservative Party that may be much bigger and more damaging than anyone first imagined.

With the most recent federal polls showing the Conservatives at 30% and the Liberals at 31%, with Premiers Danny Williams and Lorne Calvert attacking the PM in the media and now the Atlantic caucus being assaulted from all sides by their constituents and striking out inside their own party, it’s believed Jim Flaherty’s sudden decision to listen and discuss the issue is an attempt to keep his party from self destructing.

It seems the Atlantic caucus of the Conservative Party of Canada may be revolting against their leadership and if that’s true, it may be very damaging. Their constituents have been up in arms ever since the new equalization formula was released and it was discovered (without the help of the federal government) that Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan stand to lose Billions as a result.

There is no word on how the Conservative MPs in Saskatchewan are reacting behind closed doors but it’s likely they, like their Atlantic counterperts, are being deluged by calls and emails from angry voters.

Since the budget was released Premier Williams has taken a very hard line with Ottawa while Premier McDonald of Nova Scotia has opted for calm discussion of the issue. This type of “good cop/bad cop” routine, similar to the one used by former Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm and Danny Williams during negotiation of the 2005 Atlantic Accord, may again be working to soften Ottawa’s position.

While discussions appear to be taking place, it may all be too little too late.

Much water has passed under the bridge in the few short weeks since the federal budget was released. At this point it’s doubtful that anything short of full implementation of the Harper promise, to exclude all non-renewable resources from the equalization formula, will be enough to appease voters in Atlantic Canada or Saskatchewan. Something that’s not likely to happen.

Mr. Harper and his party took a very big gamble with their last budget and they seem to have lost.

They looked at the numbers, examined their strengths and weaknesses and decided that by pandering to voters in Ontario and Quebec they could afford to lose a few votes in the "other" Provinces and still win a majority government. Now, with support for the Conservatives falling slightly behind the Liberals nationally, by 3% in Quebec and 5% in Ontario, those few seats in Atlantic Canada and out in Saskatchewan have suddenly taken on new importance.

All of a sudden the “other” provinces have become an important part of Canada once again. The question that remains however, is whether or not it's too late for Stephen Harper to mend the fences he’s broken and to find a way to buy back those disenfranchised voters with their own tax dollars. It's likely that ship has sailed.

In an effort to ensure that the pressure remains strong on Atlantic MPs and the Conservative government, a massive public rally has been scheduled in St. John's NL for Friday May 11th at the Confederation Building. Planning for the rally has been underway for sometime and it's expected to be one of the biggest in the province's history.