The Premier’s trip to Ottawa announced late Tuesday morning is only a surprise if you didn’t know about it in advance.
Regular readers of these scribblers had it yesterday:
When Danny heads off to Ottawa later this week for a round of meetings on a bunch of subjects, …
One item not mentioned on the agenda - but surely to come up - will be how the provincial government will repay the feds for the Abitibi expropriation fiasco the Premier will be leaving behind for his ministers to defend. Ministers are discovering the idea of collective responsibility, likely for the first time since the Tories took office in 2003.
If the provincial government expropriated half the town of Grand Falls by mistake – you could not make up this kind of blunder - you can safely bet they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the claim for $500 million or more that Abitibi levelled against Canada under NAFTA. The federal government may pay up front but, at some point they will likely come looking for reimbursement from the one who caused the mess in the first place.
What better time to discuss that than when Hisself is in town for meetings?
-srbp-