By Barry Stagg
March 1996
CHURCHILL FALLS vs. THE SEPARATISTS
Canadian government has grown large, fat and malignant due to federal economic policy that subordinates all other economic concerns to those of appeasing the Quebec population. The wooing of the Quebec vote is an absolute imperative for whatever federal party wishes to assume the mantle of government. It was true for the Trudeau Liberals, the Mulroney Conservatives and still true for Chretien's Liberals in 1996.
Unfortunately for the practitioners of that particular bit of political witchcraft, the other equally formidable political imperative of the times is overtaking them. That is the absolute necessity to trim down government to the point where the tax burden on citizens is bearable. That is no longer a novel drawing-room idea fit for only polite intellectual discussion. It is now of the same ilk as the idea of trimming back expenses in a household when the breadwinners are suddenly out of a job or have their household income reduced severely. The ordinary household has to cut back drastically in order to maintain their shelter (paying the mortgage) and all other wants and needs defer to that basic task. That is the task that has now overtaken government many years after these foul necessities were inflicted painfully on ordinary citizens in their common and fiscally responsible households.
Deadly comes the battle between these two imperatives. The practitioners of the black art of regional cheque-writing as a replacement for economic planning and policy are still plentiful and prominent in the federal government. Some have now flown out to the nether regions. Premier Brian Tobin of Newfoundland is an obvious example of a superficially competent politician who has made his federal career based exclusively on cheque-writing combined with brief front-running bombast. Two years of running ahead of the wind on the fishing crisis after some 13 years of impressive compliance with Liberal caucus solidarity in not making aggressive military demands has left this parochial cheque-writer in a position where he now clamours for an election mandate from the people of Newfoundland.
Newfoundlanders would do well to look to him and to his predecessor Clyde Wells to see where the source of power for those two originates. They both take power from a federal government policy of containing Newfoundland's economic ambitions inside the oppressive strait jacket of economic appeasement of Quebec. Simply put, Newfoundland has never been able to gain control over its resources since Confederation in 1949. It was thrown back at Churchill Falls and with assistance of lawyer Clyde Wells as loyal counsel to the federal government, it was thrown back in its attempt to exercise its control over the province's off-shore oil and gas in the 1980's. That is the sewer from which both these politicians take their political strength. They are no more than prissy hand-maidens to the federal Leviathan that has dictated that Newfoundland shall be subordinated economically in perpetuity to the national interest and in practical terms to the economic interests of Quebec.
The drive to simpler government was a justification by Wells for cutbacks and now Tobin uses Well's balanced budget and Tobin's own carefully hoarded slush fund to justify his own flight into renewed reckless cheque-writing and spending on the province's credit card. It is ,after all, the only kind of politics that this man knows: cheque-writing on the voters bank account. Perhaps he might wish to spend his federal pension on such flights of fancy instead of spending Newfoundlanders' overdraft. It is a hellishly offensive bit of political theory. The Liberals beat down the voters with the idea of thrift brought on by overspending and then take a little money out of their oily trousers to buy the voters affections in 1996. Every fibre of every Newfoundland voter should be polarized between the poles of accepting Newfoundland's absolute responsibility to be subservient in Canada and the other pole of recognizing that Canada has suppressed Newfoundland's economic interests since Confederation in Churchill Falls and with Hibernia. Liberals Clyde Wells and Brian Tobin are two of the main perpetrators of this indignity on Newfoundland and both rightfully deserve retirement as a result.
In the absence of such a polarization, the provincial Liberals like the federal party have an excellent chance of carrying the election by impressing voters with their ability to manage a crisis that they have created, that they have perpetuated and which they propose to be the order of things for Newfoundland forever .
The partitioning question in Quebec as advanced by Chretien's Liberals in their hands is no more than a political ploy to force the separatists hand and to produce a lessening of the popularity of separatism, preparatory to a federal election where the Liberals intend to win back the majority of Quebec seats on a platform of re-extending the deadening policy of appeasement. The Liberals operate on a firm, pragmatic political footing in this regard. There will be no partitioning of Quebec as long as the Liberals can frighten the casual separatists into coming over to the Liberal side for another election. That effectively means that the status quo for Canada and for Newfoundland will remain. The beggaring of Newfoundland has gone on for decades and Brian Tobin is no more a solution to that beggaring than was Clyde Wells.
If getting in front of a cause that was politically convenient to Jean Chretien is enough to propel Brian Tobin into a five year mandate in Newfoundland then the political arena has been reduced to comic opera status. Tobin is running without a budget, with less than a week of stewardship of office and with nothing other than the classic "personality" platform.
It is especially sickening to hear Tobin bray about his resolution to see Voisey Bay development take place wholly inside Newfoundland when he stood by while the Hibernia oil wells were capped by his Liberal government in 1980-1984.
Tobin and his like have plenty of allies among those dependent on federal money to maintain their lifestyles in the province. If the governing of Newfoundland is to be reduced to electing government paid professionals to power, then allowing them to glad- hand while they go about the business of managing the government's "Indian Act" economy then the whole concept of Newfoundland's amalgamation with Canada is brought into question.
What is the point of Confederation if a smile, a bit of front- running grandstanding and a promise to keep the money-faucets full of other people's money will buy you an election? What is the point at all?