It's not like people haven't called him nutty nutty nutbar before.It's not like his behaviour hasn't grown somewhat erratic lately, (think John Hickey in and out of cabinet).
Forget his glee at demolishing the largest fishing company in Atlantic Canada. Is it really a "golden opportunity"?
Now Danny Williams claims that the fish processing sector will collapse within five years if we don't start importing labourers from other countries at high speed.
This is one bizarre claim, given that Williams knows full well the processing industry needs to shed workers at high speed to restore profitability. There are way too many workers chasing too few fish. Wages are dropping. Hours of work are dropping and in some plants work is going begging because it simply isn't worth people's while to drive to another community for the measly few hours work involved.
Don't just believe it because you read it in Bond Papers.
Believe the head of the hunter-gatherers union, Earl McCurdy, who has been busily working to get both the federal and provincial governments to pony up for an early retirement package.
Believe Danny Williams who only last year - that's right - last year was writing to the federal party leaders trying to get their support for yes, an early retirement package for workers. In fact, an early retirement package was the very first thing Williams went looking for from whoever became Uncle Ottawa.
So is he nuts?
No.
By Danny Williams' own account he was caught in a conversation with other premiers and a reporter about immigration. Other provinces are farther ahead in handling the immigration issue.
Around Bond Papers, it looks like he got jammed up in a scrum, felt the need to offer input and in the classic four Yorkshireman way, basically said we'd have to get our immigration act in gear because if we didn't: Armageddon.
Well instead, Danny winds up looking like all his bags were packed and he's ready to go, leaving on a jetplane to Looneyville.
And for those who think we will wind up importing Bulgarian fishwomen like they've done in the Martimes - just because they've done it in the Maritimes - think again.
They don't have the humongous surplus of capacity we do. The numbers vary but Bond Papers can find people who will tell you that we can actually produce a thriving industry with merely 10-20% of the 100+ fish processing plants dotted around the island portion of the province.
Fewer than 20 plants.
If the early retirement thing works, there will be negligible demand for labour beyond what can be supplied by the local labour market.
Now comes the tricky part.
If the provincial government would get out of the way, the fish processing sector could sort itself out and find new markets and new production ideas that require fewer workers.
Unfortunately the current provincial fish minister [right] thinks he's still in the 1980s. He busily piles on regulations designed to frustrate the marketplace, drive up costs, and in the case of Fishery Products International keep the economic pressure on a company that would have righted itself long ago were it not for the provincial government's neglect or as one suspects, outright mischief.No, Danny is not nuts.
Well, not drooling on himself, need a straight-jacket, barking like a dog, hearing voices, up his meds kinda nuts.
Danny Williams just has this habit of pulling things out of any available orifice when he feels the need. When Danny gets caught
Sadly, in this farce, the Premier has enablers: like Paul Oram, his current parliamentary assistant, who seems to have no function other than laud the Premier's magnificence in hopes that the Premier will elevate Oram to a cabinet stipend.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes, as in this instance, it doesn't. We are now in Day Two of Immi-gate and already we have the provincial fisheries department saying it has no studies on labour demands in the processing sector, even though Williams claimed to have read said studies.
And the story of the serious questions about the Premier's
Ooops.
The story likely won't last past today, however. There is always something else around these parts and tomorrow it will be the Auditor General's latest overall review of government spending.
Meanwhile, the fishery problems will slip back into the gloom, taking with it the thousands of men and women who continue to languish.
