A few years ago, I used to slave in the coalmines of Confederation Building. One of my tasks was dealing with requests for people to hold protests, demonstrations or speeches in the lobby of the building's East Block.
Convention since Joe Smallwood's day was that the East Block was part of the House of Assembly or at least shared with it and as such the lobby was pretty much open to gatherings. Provided of course the stuff was non-violent. Over ths seven years I was there we had a few loud groups and more than few 20s of Lambs or Morgan got passed around at the bigger ones. By and large, though, things went off smoothly.
As much as it might have been painful sometimes, we facilitated the protests. Sometimes, we even earned a few small brownie points for respecting people's right to tell the administration I worked for that we were all the products of successive generations of first cousin intermarriage.
That wasn't a unique put-down, by the way; every Newfoundland government since the year dot is apparently composed of inbreeding the likes of which is unknown outside certain European royal families.
But I digress.
So why was it that the multiple sclerosis people - holding a small demonstration to get help for catastrophic medical costs - had to stage their protest in the cold and snow on the front steps of the Confederation Building?
As Bond Papers got the story, the whole thing was originally signed off and approved to be indoors.
That is until the wonderful crew in Transportation and Works(John "I have a signed contract on my desk in front of me" Hickey, minister) realized these protests were going to criticize the Williams administration, albeit in a polite way. The front line official checked with the powers that be - likely including the comms director -and the people with multiple sclerosis were told that unless they had a sponsoring department, they were SOL.
As it turns out, that's not far off what they have been told anyway by the Department of Health on their request for financial help, but that's another story.
But here's the thing. Departments don't "sponsor" anyone but friendly groups. So unless you are going to stand in the lobby of Confed Building and sing hymns of praise to the current administration, better think again about exercising your right to free speech in a public building anytime at all soon.
According to the department known generally as Never and Can't - never works and can't transport - the public lobby of a public building adjacent to the House of Assembly is no place for political free speech.