Rumpole and the Ticking Clock #nlpoli #cdnpoli

There are rules about how long a judge may take to issue a decision.

Now, now.

The lawyers among you are already spitting their morning coffee across the breakfast table at their long-suffering spouses but it is true.

There are rules.

The truth is an absolute defence #nlpoli

Seems that the goings-on in the provincial legislature are weighing heavy on many brows at the end of the first week the place is back in session since this time last year.

Telegram editor Russell Wangersky has a column on it as does Bob Wakeham in the Saturday paper.

Wangersky writes about the way the House was recently.

Part of the blame is the failure of not reining in these Type-A bad boys and bad girls soon enough; I know that criticizing past Speakers of the House is frowned upon in the parliamentary system, but when Speakers are either too lax or too one-sided in dealing with abuses of House procedure, you can guarantee that frustration will build and tempers will boil.

Let’s be clear:  Harvey Hodder and Roger Fitzgerald were both incompetent and nakedly biased during their time as Speaker of the legislature.

In the ordinary course of things, in a properly functioning House, that is a contempt and one could be expected to be dragged in front of the members to answer for it.

But as with all defamation claims, the truth is an absolute defence.  That’s why your humble e-scribbler had no problem in writing and publicising the comment repeatedly.

Both were picked, one might readily surmise because they were biased and would comply with the wishes of the root cause of the problem in the House.

The current Speaker is another hand-picked one; Tommy Osborne was told to stand aside.  But we have yet to see him rule on a major issue.  Let’s give Ross Wiseman the chance to break the recent pattern and restore some dignity to the tattered Speaker’s robes.

Wangersky identifies the source of the problem as well:  it starts at the top..

But what neither he nor Wakeham get to is why the government uses the tactics they do or why the opposition members individually or collective engage in the buffoonery.

That’s where the real problem lies.

And suggesting that the party leaders need to sit their members down and give them a stern talking to?

Well, that just misses the point entirely. You have to get at the cause.  The goons and the buffoons – whether in the House or on Twitter or in the comments sections online– are just a symptom.

Still, the very fact that people are talking about the legislature and how it needs to improve is good.

That’s certainly a radical change from recent years.

- srbp -

Enough of the Political Day-Care #nlpoli

In some respects, it is a threat that would strike fear only into the hearts of Danny Williams’ Tories:

If this problem is not resolved today, you can expect me to absolutely vilify your minister on Monday morning on Open Line.

No broken limbs.

No financial ruin.

A call to Open Line.

That was enough for the ruling Tories to save the voice message containing the threat and to reveal it to the world as a question of privilege in the House of Assembly at the end of the first week  the legislature has been open since last spring.

The government house leader spoke of intimidation and threats and fear.  In a scrum with the media after , Joan Burke – to whom the threat was directed in early February – appeared shaken.  Premier Kathy Dunderdale, she of the haughty condescension and the cheap put down had a few words of derision for the Liberals and their bad words. The only thing the Tories didn’t do in all their melodramatic glory was stage a collective back-of-wrist-to-forehead swoon.

All wonderful play-acting on the part of the Tories. Former parole officer Joan Burke showed her unease with all the credibility  of Rob Ford after a visit from Mary Walsh in her Princess Warrior costume one morning.

All that was vintage Danny,too.  The aged drama queen  could hurl any sorts of petty, vicious. mean-spirited and contemptible invective at anyone any time.  Yet, a whisper of derision aimed vaguely in his direction would bring on the screams of self-righteous indignation.  The bully one minute, the victim the next in the fashion of the chickenshit hockey goon who specialises in taking the dive for the ref whenever someone stands up to him.

Playing acting, hysterics,  and, of course, the finest vintage hypocrisy on the planet.

Classic Danny-era politics.

But that really isn't the story here.

The story is that elected provincial politics remains the domain of the childish and immature eight years after the mean widdle kid and his allies took it there.

Danny made the House safe for buffoonery, contempt, accusation, insult and intimidation.  Jerome, Darin, Paul and Steve showed how well they learned their lessons with their performance on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. On Thursday, the whole gang on the government side joined in.

This week, though, the Tories proved the old saying that in politics you don’t have to be good, you just have to be better than the alternatives.

For their part, the New Democrats display in the House this week was less about childishness than inexperience combined with basic incompetence.  This is a caucus that has a long way to go and a lot to learn before they could ever be considered a political threat to anyone except themselves.

As for the Liberals, they confirmed this week that these are likely the last Liberals anyone will see sitting in a legislature in this province, at least with enough of them to occupy the official opposition benches.    A couple of them might survive the next election but the Liberal Party is more an historical artifact than a viable political force.

To make clear how politically inept they are, consider Jim Bennett’s asinine phone call.  Anyone who watched the Liberals in action this week would hardly be surprised by it. In making the call, Bennett showed he has no judgment. In defending the call as the enthusiastic defence of a constituent, Bennett shows he has no genuine understanding of just how ridiculous his behaviour was.

Yvonne Jones’ performance as opposition House leader on Thursday was equally cringe-worthy.  In her embarrassing defence of Jim Bennett, she showed no signs of understanding parliamentary procedure despite having sat in the House for the past 16 years.  During Question Period the rest of the week, she displayed little knowledge of anything else. How bad was Jones?  She made John Hickey look good.

The root of the problem for the Liberals remains the same as it has been for years:  no one is in charge. Generally, neither the leader, no one in the caucus, the senior caucus staff nor the party leadership has any idea of where to go or what to do to get there. They operate as a loose association of individuals lacking either a common purpose or the common sense to work together.

Dwight Ball is clearly the leader in name only.  His own performance over the past few months and in the House so far could be generously described as grossly ineffective. The only good thing for Ball is that he won’t face any challengers should he decide he wants to lead the party permanently.  The party is in such desperate shape that no one in his or her right mind would waste energy trying to bring the party back from the political dead.

For the rest of us, though, this week has been nothing more but a reminder that the provincial legislature and the provincial government have become little more than a very expensive day-care. 

That is not merely an uncomfortable thought.

It’s unacceptable.

- srbp -

New partners and new supplicants #nlpoli

After the throne speech, the leaders of the opposition parties get to have their say in the legislature.

Just as the throne speech sets the government’s agenda, so too can the replies set the agenda for the opposition parties. They could be committed to biting at the government’s heels and demonstrating, as one former opposition leader put it, that the public could toss out the incumbents and trust the Opposition with the government at the next election.

Liberal leader Dwight Ball, the official opposition leader, offered a few “thoughts as we collectively work together to secure a brighter future.”

The rest of his speech covered health spending,  search and rescue and a handful of other topics all of which fit with the government’s agenda very neatly.  Any differences – on things like the fishery, for example -  were more cosmetic than substantive.

So with Ball basically pledging to be a partner for the ruling Tories, what of the New Democrats and Lorraine Michael?

Well, Lorraine talked as though she didn’t have a caucus.  There were plenty of references to what Lorraine had said before.  There are a great many “I”s in the NDP team.

But most telling of all, was Lorraine’s reversion to her old approach, of the supplicant going to authority to beg favours:

What we are asking for, Mr. Speaker, is very, very basic.

What they are “asking” for.  Not what they are working for.  Not what they will push for and not what they will do when they form the government.

No, as they did during the election, the NDP want to ask for things from those in power.

So with the Tories pledging to stay the course,  they can count on a new partnership with the Liberals as the NDP come on bended knee to ask for something or other.

Anyone in Newfoundland and Labrador will have to look somewhere other than the House of Assembly if they want new ideas. 

As for those clamouring for democratic reform, they could put a dozen new committees in the House.  Since none of the elected members seem to have any idea what they should be doing with them, democratic reform will have to come from somewhere else as well.

- srbp -

The Old Boys (and Girls) Club #nlpoli

The always provocative and informative labradore posted a chart on Wednesday showing the number of days the House of Assembly sat in each session since Confederation.

The information to make up the chart came from the legislative library,  the group of people who provide information and research for the members of the legislature.

That period marked by the black band is the period in which the House typically sat for the greatest number of days. It runs from 1972 to 1996.  For the 22 years before that and for the 16 years after that period, the legislature hasn’t sat more than 60 days a year.

There’s more.  Since 1996 or so, the House has also sat for fewer days per week when it is in session.  The members decided that they didn’t want to have a session on Friday mornings as the rules used to require.  They decided to cancel the Friday sitting and add an hour to three of the other four days.  Same number of hours, they explained, so there was no loss to the amount of time.

They just left out a couple of details.  One of the biggest ones is that they chopped off a Question Period on Friday morning.  That meant that the opposition parties had one fewer chance during the week to grill the government party.  It also meant that House lost a day on which to debate legislation.  While they theoretically had the same number of hours in total, the members actually cut off the amount of effective time they had for discussion.

They made a few other changes as well.  Once upon a time, not so very long ago, members of the legislature would ask for information from government departments.  They got them through something called Questions on the Order Paper.  Departments were obliged to deliver the information, free of charge, and without much – if any – deletions or omissions.

The idea behind that was that the members of the legislature had an inherent right to inquire into what the government was doing with public money and how they were doing it. The legislature is supposed to be about more than a place for rackets and speeches. It’s supposed to be a place where the members found out stuff.

After all, the legislature is not the government.  It is the place where the government goes to get permission to do things with the people’s money.  They get the permission from the men and women the people elected to keep an eye on things. That’s the idea at the heart of democracy based on popular sovereignty.  Power  - the right to make decisions - comes from the people.

In any event, all that’s as maybe.  In the late 1990s, the government and opposition cut a deal among themselves.  Instead of asking questions on the order paper, the opposition agreed to submit access to information requests, which they would pay for out of the money they got to run the House.  The government could then censor the documents as if the members of the House had no right to information other than what the ordinary punters could get.

Everyone had less work to do, the government could keep more information from the public and – don’t forget – they all agreed to give themselves extra cash to hand out in their districts as they saw fit and without receipt.

No one objected.

Not a one.

No one did anything to change any of it until 2006 and even then, the only reason they changed was because some of them got caught breaking the law.  Even then the only thing that changed out of the convenient deal was the slush fund.  All the other parts stayed in place. 

It’s that sort of general understanding among the political parties - the back-room agreements among da b’ys - that helped create the current state of the House of Assembly.

What will be interesting to see in the new session that starts on Monday is whether the sort of easy relationship among the members will carry on.

- srbp -

Democracy Watch: Newfoundland and Labrador edition

Think of it as another type of mother’s day:

"The reality is that a friendly dictatorship definitely applies in this case."

Resulting legislative dysfunction is "quite shocking," [Memorial University political science professor Alex Marland] said.

"A number of the parliamentary principles that are supposed to occur don't occur here. The biggest problem is the lack of opposition and the lack of scrutiny of government operations."

Three things:

One:  there’s nothing friendly about the sort of nasty, mean-spirited, vicious, petty, personal digs quoted in this Canadian Press piece running across Canada this weekend. They may not be friendly but they have been very much par for the course since 2001.

Two:  Marland ought to know how dysfunctional politics is these days in Newfoundland and Labrador.  He used to be a comms director in Williams’ administration.

Three:  Irony is referring to a Quebec judge making palpable errors in the context of the Abitibi expropriation TARFU.

-srbp-

Head Shaker Update: The Globe headline on this CP story makes it sound like the Old Man just dropped the writ:  “Williams seeks third term as Newfoundland’s premier”.

The next election isn’t due until October 2011.  A lot can change in the time between now and then.

Personality Cult

Take a gander at a Canadian Press story about the personality cult surrounding the Premier and you’ll notice some rather curious things.

Of course there are the cultists themselves who display the characteristic worship of the Premier, the propagation of the usual myths and the patronising and paternalistic way these people look at politics.  To wit:

“Blair”:…The one thing I can say for certain is that he has accomplised  [sic]the most possible for this province, and I see no leader that could possibly shake my belief in him and his ability to run our great Province.

…

“C”:…I can finally say that there is a premier that I am proud of.  I can honestly say that when I am represented by MY premier I'm not cringing in anticipation of his comments like so many in the past.

…

“Seriously”:…Danny Williams is successful because he doesn't need the office. He can make decisions that have better long term outcomes because he doesn't need the office.

…

By far the best example of the personality cultist view came from someone who signed with a pseudonym “Joe Blow”:

But Danny already has everything he wants when it comes to money. Now what he wants is a better future for his people, and he is succeeding in this.

[Lorraine] Michael wonders how long the Cult of Danny can endure?

Here is your answer.

Death will be the only thing that stops this man from ensuring that our province thrives.

“Now what he wants is a better future for his people, and he is succeeding in this.”  There can be no clearer statement of that view which reduces individuals in Newfoundland and Labrador to the status of children fit for nothing better than to be looked after.

Such is the essence of personality cults.

It’s also worth noting this comment:

"If anybody thinks democracy is healthy in this province just look at the voter turnout the other day," said Michael Temelini, a political scientist at Memorial University.

…

"As popular as (Williams) may be, we should be paying as much attention to the House of Assembly and its important role in upholding our democratic system. People should stop paying so much attention to the executive branch. But that's what happens when you get one party in power.

"What's going on in Newfoundland is people are just going to wait until Danny Williams retires. Now that's a problem."

There is nothing evident today that was not also evident five or six years ago but that’s really another issue.  The thing to note is that Temelini – once a very public Dan-o-phile – is now a solid critic of where the province is under Williams’ leadership.

Temelini isn’t alone in this.  There are a number of public commentators who have gone from praising the Premier to be concerned for the state of public life in the province.  Then there are the comments coming from all corners of the province that express some frustration with things in Newfoundland and Labrador after seven years of Danny.  Increasingly the grumbling is coming from within the Tory party, especially among the old townie establishment part of the Blue Machine.  it’s all still very much quiet grumbling of the sort where people are a bit self-conscious that word might spread back to Hisself and Hisself’s hangers-on. But five years ago, no one would have dreamed of even thinking of being disgruntled let alone expressing it.

Moods are shifting.

Still, some people quoted in the article seem to recognise  - albeit vaguely – that there is an issue even if they quite obviously don’t know what to do about it.

"Why do people put so much hope in one person?" wonders Lorraine Michael, the sole New Democrat in a Gang of Five opposition that includes four Liberals.

"We do have a personality cult mentality here in Newfoundland and Labrador and a lot of it is based on his personality."

That last bit is by no means clear.  The worship of an individual in the fashion seen in this province over the past few years speaks to a much deeper cultural issue  - a cultural disorder – rather than something as simple as “he is a sweet guy” or “he is a bully” or “he is very charismatic.” take your pick:  those are all descriptions of a personality but they don’t explain the bootlicking toadying of so many out there.

Nor does it explain the unwillingness of Michael and the four Liberal opposition members to resist being steamrolled by Mr. Popularity.  Just because someone is popular, even if he or she is actually that popular, doe snot make them correct in decisions. Rolling over on something like the expropriation bill, for example, simply shouldn’t happen in a healthy democracy.

Still, recognising there is a problem is the first step in finding a solution.

-srbp-

What Wakeham said

Every tool in the Tory tool shed may be manning the phones in yet another  campaign of partisan intimidation, but more than a few of the rest of us have wondered what Bob Wakeham said to get all the tools in a prudish tizzy.

Those of us who haven’t been practicing the two minute hate required of Party members might wonder what could possibly have caused Danny Williams to tell the Ceeb he won’t be talking to them because of:

"very unfortunate and unnecessary comments made about the premier on the CBC" that [Elizabeth] Matthews [notionally Williams’ director of communication] said were irrelevant and hurtful to his family, and for that reason the premier won't do interviews with the CBC about his health care.

You see, the plain truth is that Bob Wakeham didn’t really say much of anything on February 3 that normal human beings would find the least bit problematic.  In the context of a discussion about what the media ought to cover about politicians and their private lives, Wakeham mentioned a subject which – until now – the local news media had completely ignored.

After acknowledging that the local media hadn’t “done a Tiger Woods” and had covered some other issues like the Premier’s back surgery in 2003, Wakeham said:

I always found it kinda passing strange that we’ve…the media…has never dealt with the fact… never reported on his martial problems. To me that was kind of something that we should have reported on not in a real intimate way in trying to find out why his marriage went belly up but just as a matter of fact.  This was a woman who had been with him on the podium on election night, had been with him on election campaigns and all of a sudden she disappears…

That’s it.

There’s a few more words as the idea trails off but that’s the sum and substance of Wakeham/Goldstein’s evil words.

Those are the remarks that Wakeham’s fellow panellist that day has now described as “contemptible.”  The Telegram commentary editor also said that Wakeham’s remarks were “ill-timed”, a phrase that is rather curiously but surely coincidentally similar to the official view that the words were “completely irrelevant.”

Now Wakeham did bring the whole thing up again a couple of weeks later when his co-panellist on the Morning Show was none other than former Tory candidate, notorious Tory apologist and biographer Janice Wells. He went over the same ground again in much the same way.

But again, that was the sum of it:  report as fact matters of fact involving a prominent public official.
Only in Newfoundland and Labrador since 2003 could anyone find that the least bit radical  - let alone objectionable - as an idea.

Then again only in Newfoundland and Labrador since 2003 would you find reporters who agree that it is unconscionable to report facts as facts.

Not all of them have actually said that out loud or typed it, mind you.  Nonetheless, some one of them have actually censored themselves both on this health story, aspects related to it and on other stories where the potential would be high that the callers and their political associates would be less than pleased.

And that would be exactly what the callers, the e-mailers and their partisan friends wanted all along.

What Bob Wakeham said was nothing at all.

What others said in response to his remarks, though, is yet more evidence of just how dysfunctional the political society of Newfoundland and Labrador is.

-srbp-

There’s more to this than a few seals

Given the origins of and the scope of the trade talks starting between Canada and the European Union, Danny Williams’ refusal to participate is even more bizarre than it first appeared.

Whatever is going on with the government party and its supporters – including voice of the cabinet minister crowd who seem obsessed with clubbing seals these days - it ain’t really about seals.

The provincial government seems intent on ignoring both the reality of the province’s dependence on trade with the United States and the growing concerns about American trade protectionism. Of the $13-plus billion in exports to the top 10 trading partners for the province, the United States consumed $10 billion or 77%.  The U.S. accounts for 70% of all Newfoundland and Labrador international exports.

This, from the Economist, says much:

You can see why Canada would want to lessen its dependence on America, which bought 75.5% of its exported goods last year and provided 63.4% of its imported ones. Yanked into recession by America, Canada worries that trade will suffer from protectionism (in the form of new Buy American provisions and country-of-origin labelling requirements on farm products) and Washington’s moves to toughen up border security.

The deal could open new markets for Canadian exports of agricultural, fish and forestry products in addition to fish, aerospace, automotive and other exports. 

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is refusing to participate in the talks as part of the Canadian delegation.  The Premier claims it is because he doesn’t trust the Prime Minister to look after the province’s concerns about European opposition to the seal hunt, the push for custodial management of fisheries outside the 200 mile Canadian exclusive economic zone and impact of a EU shrimp tariff on Newfoundland and Labrador shrimp exports.

Since all those things are on the table plus a great deal more directly affecting the future of the provincial economy, it’s bizarre that the provincial government would leave all those issues entirely in the hands of someone they supposedly don’t trust.

Bizarre indeed.

 

 

-srbp-

How to tell when your position is wrong

When you are a political leader and your comments show you to be so far out of touch with the best interest of your province such that Stephen Harper looks sensible in comparison, then you know something is wrong.

Seriously wrong.

Like there’s a giant fireball in the sky above the place you’re heading and you can’t understand why all these cars are going the other way wrong.

Like you and a bunch of your drunken teenage friends go camping at Crystal Lake and you start making out with your girlfriend alone in a tent in the middle of the night and wonder where that machete came from sticking through the tent top wrong.

Topic:  the annual seal hunt, also known as March Madness (in this case in May) or as it has become, the platform by which every “C” list celebrity or celebrity wannabe seeks the public spotlight once again.

Issue:  The European Union voted to ban imports of seal products.

The Stephen Harper Comment: "If we were to make our trade relations with the European Union about only the sealing issue, we will never have any trading relations with the European Union because as we know this is a disagreement of long-standing," [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper said at a news conference.

The Danny Williams Comment:   "You know he's prepared to sacrifice Newfoundland and Labrador's interest in the interests of other issues for Canadians. And I think that's just dead wrong and it shows what this guy is all about," [Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams said].

Okay.

According to the provincial government’s own fact sheet,  “the sealing industry is worth $55 million” to the provincial economy. That was a figure for 2006.

In that same year, Newfoundland and Labrador did more than 10 times as much business with Germany and the United Kingdom combined as the total value of the seal fishery.

In 2006, exporters from Newfoundland and Labrador sold a heckuva lot more than seal pelts to European Union countries.  At that value, they shipped a heckuva lot more to European countries than the seal products they may have shipped through them.

In 2008, Germany alone accounted for $1.02 billion of Newfoundland and Labrador’s exports. According to CBC, total Canadian seal exports to the EU last year amounted to a measly $5.5 million.  That’s all Canada, not just Newfoundland and Labrador.

Get the idea?

Now just think – for one teensy second – about the implication of Danny Williams’ comment.  Apparently, the only issue of any consequence here for Danny Williams is the seal hunt and 10 times as much trade between our province and Europe and the chance to sort out some of the grievances doesn’t matter one jot or tittle.

Lest you think this remark is out of context consider that the provincial government earlier this year turned down the chance to work with an international trade mission aimed at increasing trade with European countries.

Why?

Because of the seal hunt, among a couple of other issues which would have been better addressed at the table rather than far away from it .Actually, if you follow the links you’ll see another classic Williams administration constantly-shifting-position, but let’s just go with the “No seal hunt, no play” position.

If there’s logic in the provincial government’s argument – as enunciated by Danny Williams  - it sure isn’t obvious. Apparently, the economic benefit to the provincial economy of increased trade with the Europeans isn’t something the provincial ministry could be bothered with. 

At this point, it’s hard to see how the provincial government is protecting provincial interests by launching into another tirade with anyone over seals when seals are only a tiny fraction of the overall provincial economic picture involved.

But seriously:

How can you tell your political position is crap?

When Stephen Harper sounds reasonable in comparison.

-srbp-

Updated – added sentences giving value  of seal exports to EU last year, according to CBC story.

But didn’t he approve the budget decisions in cabinet?

Some things make you wonder if cabinet actually functions like cabinet is supposed to function.

Former finance minister – and current justice minister – Tom Marshall is pleased that the government he is part of is putting cash into his district.

Either he is playing a huge joke on his constituents or he genuinely had no idea what was in the budget until he heard the speech or voice of the cabinet minister shagged up yet another story.

Either way it isn’t good.

-srbp-

Dysfunction and disconnect

How many times does a government get to do and say completely contradictory or unfounded things before people wonder about the competence of the people involved?

1.  "The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is unable to support this at this time on the basis of very genuine concerns that our province’s issues [shrimp tariff, seal hunt, custodial management] may not be safeguarded or dealt with in an appropriate way by the Federal Government."  Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, February 20, 2009.

2.   “It is clear that the efforts of our government, in collaboration with those of the Government of Canada and industry, are indeed paying off,” continued Minister Rideout.”  Major progress made on European Union shrimp tariff, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador news release, July 11, 2007.

3.   "That's how things have worked for us over the years, and we've got shafted as a result of it," he said, claiming that Newfoundland fish stocks have been traded off by the feds. Danny Williams, comments to reporters, quoted in “Williams ponders own deal with EU”, The Telegram, March 7, 2009. [Not on line] This is a commonly held belief of some people in the province but there is no evidence to that such trades ever occurred.

4. "We strongly endorse your commitment for bilateral agreements and look forward to working with the federal government to achieve a bilateral agreement with the EU." Innovation minister Trevor Taylor,  August 11, 2008, letter to then federal international trade minister Michael Fortier, quoted in “Province backed trade talks: 2008 letter”, The Telegram, March 10, 2009.

5.  “If that means that there's an agreement between Canada and 12 jurisdictions, and there has to be a separate agreement negotiated with Newfoundland and Labrador, then I'm fine with that." Williams, quoted in The Telegram, March 7, 2009.

Williams reportedly conveyed his concerns to Quebec premier jean Charest in the latter’s capacity as chairman of the council of provincial premiers.  Charest has been one of the driers of the EU trade deal since he first proposed it after the annual economic conference in Davos, 2007.

6.  "The EU doesn't negotiate trade agreements with provinces or federations," MUN's Steven Wolinetz said. “Prof puzzled by premier’s call for own EU trade deal”, The Telegram, March 9, 2009.

7.   "I do understand from behind the scenes that this is actually causing some very, very serious concerns from people in the EU," Williams said. quoted in The Telegram, March 7, 2009.

8.  “It would have been ideal if all provinces had joined” in Friday’s pro-trade declaration, [EU official] Jan Sliva said in a statement. “But in our view those provinces and territories that did join represent the majority of Canada’s trade and investment potential.” quoted in “N.L. won’t stop Canada-Europe trade talks: EU”, CanWest, March 10, 2009.

Given all that, it would seem logical to conclude that the provincial government actually isn’t interested in resolving its three big issues.  After all, they cannot be resolved if the provincial government refuses to address them or has no means to address them given its refusal to work on an obvious mechanism to resolve them.

And hey, it’s not like Newfoundland and Labrador doesn’t have a significant interest in expanded trade with the European Union.  After the United States, the EU is Newfoundland and Labrador’s largest foreign trade partner.

-srbp-