The following originally appeared at nottawa on September 2, 2009 as a comment on the emergency session of the legislature to deal with changes to legislation about the Churchill River.
It includes a mention of an earlier political controversy, the December 2008 expropriation bill. The two are linked and in light of Friday’s ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in case related to the expropriation, Mark Watton’s observations at the time are worth reading again.
Danny Williams, thee Premier at the time of both these incidents, may be gone from the political scene but the ministers who were integral parts of the policies remain in positions of power. One of them - Kathy Dunderdale – is William’s hand-picked successor.
The policies and the attitudes that bred them remain in place, as finance minister Tom Marshall made plain on Friday.
Nothing has changed in Newfoundland and Labrador. And that is why these comments from three years ago still resonate:
