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Politics Makes Strange Bed Fellows

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Premier Danny Williams’ threat to torpedo the federal Conservatives in the next election has resulted in the pelican plop hitting the fan and led to a rather odd reaction from the provincial Liberal party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Current and former Liberal leaders, Gerry Reid and Roger Grimes, have both condemned Williams’ approach. In his exuberance Roger Grimes now sounds like a Conservative campaign manager talking up the virtues of MPs Norm Doyle, Fabian Manning and Loyola Hearn. Both men are saying the Province has nothing to gain by taking a hard line with Ottawa. “What if Harper gets upset and won’t provide loan guarantees for the Lower Churchill”, they moan like two aging hens sitting on a nest of hard boiled eggs. Give me a break!

I find it very interesting that these supposedly experienced politicians don’t see the very political game happening right under their noses. Mr. Grimes, Mr. Reid, has either of you ever negotiated a contract? A solid one I mean. Sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t ask that while our people continue to deal with a number of agreements signed by you folks in the past.

In his response to the comments Williams came as close as he could to telling the Liberals what he was up to when he noted that by shoring up the federal position the Liberals were weakening Newfoundland and Labrador’s. Apparently neither man understood the subtext of that message.

Gerry, Roger, not to put words in the Premier’s mouth but likely his message didn’t refer to equalization talks alone. I may have referred to the Province’s overall negotiating position with Ottawa. You see to negotiate effectively you should start from a position of strength not weakness. The Upper Churchill is a clear example of what happens if you forget that. In order to get a good deal you want to strengthen your own position and weaken your opponent’s while putting him off balance. It’s that simple.

That’s the background info gentlemen now here’s the scenario we have before us.

During the last election Harper promised to remove non-renewable resource revenue from equalization and said no province would be worse off as a result of reforms. Only an idiot would believe the PM can live up to the first promise and only a bigger one would allow him to renege on the second.

The PM can’t remove those revenues. Quebec and Ontario, the two most politically powerful provinces in the Country, simply won’t allow it. I know it, the people of the province know it and the Premier knows it. That, along with Mr. Harper’s election promise, means however that the province has a card it can play during upcoming talks.

Thanks to the Premier’s recent tirade the PM is now weakened and off balance with equalization talks looming. Harper is being attacked from all directions and his numbers are plummeting fast. To save face and get his poll numbers up he has to find a way to get out of the very public mess Williams put him in. So the question isn’t so much if we’ll be able to protect our revenues but what Harper is willing to sweeten the pot with. In a sense we’ve won before the talks even begin.

Perhaps Harper will “sort of” honor his commitment by removing a percentage of resource revenues. That move might placate Ontario and Quebec and if you want to split hairs Harper can claim he never said he’d remove 100% of revenues, just that he’d remove them. If he did that we would keep all offshore revenues for the life of the accord agreement and half of them after that date, which is more than we have today. Who knows how he’ll handle resource revenues but what matters is that we put him in the mess and he wants out very, very badly so he’ll find a way.

As for the Province losing money through equalization reform, Harper simply won’t do it, not now. The PM knows exactly how loud the people of this province can get. He’s heard how deafening we can be on two separate occasions and from both sides of the House. The PM isn’t going to want to deal with that during an election. It won’t take much to ensure that this Province doesn’t lose any money and that’s exactly what Harper will do, one way or another, thanks in part to the very loud reminder we just gave him. I’ll bet visions of Paul Marten’s embarrassment at the hands this Province have been flashing through his mind ever since last weekend. The back door is closed.

Why all the noise and what does Danny boy hope to gain from all this if not protecting our revenues? Let me tell you.

The whole exercise was meant to soften up the ground before going into the equalization talks by publicly positioning our province as royally ticked at Harper’s lies and his plans to rob us blind. Now our negotiators, likely behind closed, locked and very well bolted doors, have the leverage they need to talk to the PM about other key issues of importance to the Province. The PM is not a stupid man. He knows that in order to keep Danny from throwing a monkey wrench into the election he’ll have to step up to the plate on something we want. It’s called politics guys and you should really try to learn the game sometime.

It’s likely none of us will know what the backroom talks cover off but when you realize that all this noise may well allow us to keep every cent of offshore and equalization revenue that we have today and could potentially get us an additional 50% after the accord expires along with another deal or two to be named later, the result isn’t that bad. You see Gerry and Roger there is indeed something to be gained by taking a hard line with Ottawa.

Maybe the PM will suddenly decide to come on side with fallow field legislation or find a bigger role for 5 Wing Goose. Maybe he’ll commit to some big bucks for the Lower Churchill or an increased federal presence in the Province, who knows. All I know is that I’m no politician, thank God, but even I can see that the broken axe handles being thrown about have a lot more to do with side issues than they do with equalization. I’d have thought the same idea would have crossed the minds of the Liberal leadership but apparently it hasn’t. Well if nothing else they’ve received a valuable lesson in politics and negotiation here today and for that the whole Province can be thankful. It may even come in handy some day.

By Myles Higgins

@ October 19, 2006