Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois thinks federal intergovernmental affairs minister Peter Penashue can’t be fair to Quebec.
Marois thinks Penashue is in conflict because of Old Harry and Muskrat Falls.
“We will not accept giving advantages to Newfoundland to compete with Quebec and our hydroelectricity,” Marois said, noting Hydro-Québec has never received financial support from Ottawa.
“Mr. Penashue is from Newfoundland,” Marois said. “One of the first questions is the Lower Churchill. We hope the prime minister will realize there is a conflict.”
Pauline needs better advisors.
Peter Penashue is not from Newfoundland. He is from Labrador.
There is a big difference. For one thing, Peter is not tied to the sort of misery-guts rhetoric that Danny Williams used to trot out every once in a while when he felt a bit more dyspeptic than usual. Nor is Peter likely believe the sort of tin-foil hat foolish about boundaries and such that some other like to get on with.
Peter is not beholden to Kathy Dunderdale and the rest of her Dunderbunnies for anything. He’s crossed them before and he will do it again if need be.
Peter has other interests and other issues.
And as federal intergovernmental affairs minister, Peter answers to a completely different set of political interests than the crowd in St. John’s anyway. Kathy Dunderdale has exactly zero cred with the current federal government.
She can suck up to the Prime Minister all she wants. The sorry fact is that her political impotence has been noted.
So if Pauline Marois had any clue at all, she’d have laid off the cheap and easy comments aimed at a federal cabinet minister who has some connection to political forces in her own province that she might want to connect to herself as the next provincial election draws nigh in Quebec.
And all of that is before we even to get to dealing with her comment, according to the Gazette, that “Penashue will also be involved in deciding the disputed boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland.”
Simple answer: he won’t.
So maybe Pauline needs to get some better advisors, people who actually have a frickin’ clue about what is going on outside VDQ.
Peter Penashue is actually someone the Government of Quebec can deal with sensibly and without all the Sasquatch Hunter crap she thinks Penashue represents.
Just sayin’.
- srbp -
