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A Penny Saved is a Penny “Hearned”

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As one local political analyst recently put it, “In Stephen Harper’s world these days, a penny saved is a penny Hearned.”

Even after an independent analyst has proven that the federal government reached into the pockets of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to the tune of billions, Ottawa’s representative to the province, federal cabinet minister Loyola Hearn, is still saying his government is delivering a lot of permanent, long term benefits, “while he works on other issues like equalization.”

My first response after hearing that comment, after I finished choking on my morning coffee, was to wonder aloud (and with a few well chosen expletives) why the hell Mr. Hearn would even need to “work on equalization” at this point.

If he hadn’t supported his party over his province and If the Conservative government truly intended to live up to its promises, rather than shafting the province by sneaking through a budget implementation bill that undermines the Atlantic Accord, Mr. Hearn wouldn’t be worried about trying to fix the mess he, Fabian Manning and Norm Doyle allowed to happen.

Too little too late Mr. Hearn.

Hearn is also quoted as saying he doesn’t believe anybody can argue with the government’s decisions to re-locate the weather office to Gander, the planned stationing of two major ice-breakers at St. John’s and Argentia and the announcement of over 100 million dollars for the Canadian Forces in St. John’s along with a Battalion of 100 personnel. He then has the nerve to claim that this proves the Harper government is fully committed to the province.

Bull!

The weather office and the location of troops in the province were done because of massive public outcry and to ensure that you and other Conservative MPs could manage to get elected on the last go around. The deployment of the ice breakers wasn’t done because Newfoundland and Labrador so desperately needs them, which it does, but because it would have cost the federal government millions in infrastructure funding to keep them in their original locations. It’s a cost saving measure and nothing more.

It’s interesting to see a grown man squirm like this but it looks good on him. It’s interesting as well to hear Loyola Hearn say he is, “working on equalization” when his own government is claiming they kept all of their promises and that Newfoundland and Labrador got a “sweet deal”. Whis is it Loyola?

Cut the bull Mr. Hearn.

It’s clear from your statements and the statements of other federal officials that math isn’t a strong suit of your government but if you can just stop for a second and ask yourself the following question it might become a little clearer to you:

“If you simply stayed in the province doing nothing else but handing out multi-million dollar crumbs for the rest of your term in office, exactly how many of those crumbs would you need to announce to fully repay the $11 billion dollars denied to the province through your support for Stephen Harper and the Conservative party?”

I’d love to hear the answer to that.

By Myles Higgins

@ April 20, 2007