comes around and in a small province like Newfoundland and Labrador, it picks up speed on the way back.
Consider part of the argument presented in today's Telegram that points out the entire population of Labrador is around the size of a small municipality on the Avalon, and in a larger context is far smaller than a typical federal riding in Ontario.
Here's what the editorial said, in part: "If you take all of the people who voted in Labrador Tuesday, you'd have the equivalent of a population equal to roughly Portugal Cove-St. Philip's deciding the direction of an entire nation. In Toronto ridings with a much larger number of constituents, they might feel their individual votes are necessarily less valuable."
Well, editorialists might want to remember that the population of this entire province is smaller than, say, the City of Hamilton. During the constitutional discussions in the early 1990s, some mainlanders were fond of pointing out that small provinces carried too much weigh in Ottawa in proportion to the size of a province like Ontario or Quebec.
We should thank the Telegram editorial board for siding with an argument that usually winds up with calling on this province and its voters to bend to the will of Ontario. Its basically a variant of the argument John Crosbie used in 1990 to dismiss out of hand any suggestion that offshore revenues under the Real Atlantic Accord should be redistributed.
To paraphrase Crosbie's reasoning, a provincial government that got half of its income from Ottawa shouldn't be allowed to hold up major decisions like the Meech Lake Accord. Crosbie specifically linked the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord with his attitude toward revising the Atlantic Accord.
The major flaw in the editorial's argument, though, is that Labrador enjoyed some sort of popularity or influence beyond what it normally would expect with its one riding and one member in the Commons.
The Telegram mistakes media interest and the obvious interest of political parties in winning a seat with something more than it is: a desire to win the seat.
National media interest was driven by the recent efforts by the Conservative Party to force a national election despite the overwhelming view of Canadians that they do not want an election at this time.
National political parties mounted strong campaigns. The Conservatives were particularly interested in the seat since it would have given them a way of tipping a confidence vote the way they wanted it. But here's the kicker: Even in a majority parliament, the Conservatives would work very hard to wrest the seat from the incumbent party. The political value of that - the symbolic value - would be as great then as now.
Take away the Telegram's peculiar line of reasoning and you have nothing more than the conclusion: that Ottawa ignores rural areas of the country.
While it may be a popular and easily cynical sentiment, it really isn't borne out by evidence. The community editorial demonstrates that the folly underlying the main editorial as clearly as anyone ever could.
At least the community writer won't find his argument coming back to bite him on the backside anytime soon.
