This time next week the campaigns of federal parties will be moving into high gear, thanks to an upcoming announcement than an election will be called for mid October. Never mind that the Conservative government in Ottawa has already been running election style ads for weeks attacking their opponents, that's just "reaching out to the electorate", isn't it?
In fact it's the sort of approach Newfoundland and Labrador Conservative MP, Fabian Manning, has taken to like a duck to water.
It seems good old Fabian has been taking full advantage of taxpayer funded programs that allow him to send out regular mail updates to his constituents. The problem is that little Fabian hasn't been filling the pages of his newsletters by updating the public on all of his good work in Otawa, likely because he has nothing to talk about on that front. Instead he's been using the paper, ink and postage you and I pay for as a political tool to bash the other parties and promote big daddy Steve. Tsk, Tsk Fabian. That's not really nice is it?
When it comes to the Conservative party in general and Fabian in particular, it's just the sort of underhanded (even if technically legal) move that should come as no surprise to anyone. Fabian clearly sold out his principles a long time ago. As a matter of fact I believe I know exactly when it happened. It was in May of last year.
That was the day Fabian, who was sent to Ottawa to represent the people of Avalon and the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, gave up his last shred of morality and human decency in order to curry favor with his Conservative boss by mocking his home province and his people on National television.
I wonder just how many of you out there remember the scene as Stephen Harper stood in the House of Commons to ridicule and mock Newfoundland and Labrador over the equalization debate. Howe many remember as well how Fabian, inexpicably sitting in Cabinet Minister Jim Flaherty's seat at the PM's right hand, smiled broadly, applauded on cue and cheered on his boss as the venom spewed from Harper's lips.
I remember.
Not to worry Fabian, more influential and well seasoned political figures than you have sold out in the past.
Let's take Loyola Hearn for example, now there's one who really knows how to spin a story while sticking the knife in and giving it a good twist.
When running in the last federal election in January of 2006, Hearn clearly stated, "Our party initiated the idea of custodial management. We had a resolution to that effect passed in Parliament. In our policy statements we commit to taking custodial management if we become government."
Fast forward a couple of years and it's a completely different story from Mr. Hearn.
These days custodial management is a dirty word in the Hearn vocabulary and one he avoids at all costs. Instead Mr. Hearn is telling everyone that his policy of having foreign patrol vessels off our shores keeping an eye out for their own countrymen is actually working so well we don't need to protect our own fish stocks. His reasoning is that arrests for infractions are way down so it must be working. Really Loyola?
It's a sad commentary on Canadian politics when a voter's main options include a party that has, and continues to, lie about issues of such importance to voters (Blue), another party that has done their own share of lying in the past and plans to introduce new taxes that will shift wealth into Ontario & Quebec from resource producing provinces (Red), a third that is a perennial afterthought (Orange) and one that has yet to prove itself anything more than a single issue party (Green).
It's also a sad commentary on the state of political activism in Newfoundland and Labrador that even when faced with such sad prospects we have yet to find it within ourselves to abandon the status quo of voting for a party with national interests (and control) and instead throw our support behind local candidates that are willing to place Newfoundland and Labrador's interests first.
For several years now the Newfoundland and Labrador First party has struggled to find the kind of support it needs to make inroads on the federal scene. This is a party that, working on a shoestring budget, is trying to make sure that Newfoundland and Labrador's concerns are not drowned out by the noise of a national party structure controlled by the large number of representatives from Ontario & Quebec.
Over the past few years the Newfoundland and Labrador First Party has grown far beyond its original platforms and is now poised to run candidates in the upcoming election. The belief is that while the province's 7 federal seats are of little value when occupied by members of a national party, if locally controlled they could be.
With so many minority governments expected in the coming years, a locally manged party that can elect a handful of representatives to fill those seats could actually wield a lot of power and influence on Parliament Hill. The possiblity actually exists, especially in a close minority, that such a party could potentially hold the balance of power in Ottawa. Something Newfoundland and Labrador representatives could never hope to accomplish otherwise.
The question now is whether the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are about to prove the old adage that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result", or if they are are willing to take the William's campaign of "Anyone But Conservative" a step further and throw their support behind local candidates that is answerable to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians only, not to a National party.
By Myles Higgins
