The accomplished fact of union shook the Newfoundland firmament like a clap of thunder. From the very first morning that Newfoundlanders became Canadians it could be predicted with increasing certainty that the political weather of the new province was in for a seismic change and that government – the decisive barometer – would now, under the new dispensation, have to be reckoned with in matters great and small, filling more and more of the horizon of everyone, likewise great and small.
Herbert Pottle, Dawn without light, (St. John’s: Breakwater, 1979) p. 13
Whether or not government filled the political horizon as Herb Pottle predicted, Confederation did shake the people and society of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The reverberations are still being felt.
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