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John Gray, writing in today’s Globe and Mail, presents an in-depth and, on the whole, favourable portrait of the flamboyant (some would say loud-mouthed) premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Danny Williams. Newfoundlanders love their in-your-face premier, who has made a career of feuding with the federal government.
Newfoundland has struggled economically ever since joining Canada in 1949. Quebec screwed the province out of billions of dollars from the Churchill Falls power project. The province’s hopes have been pinned on offshore oil for over 40 years, and now the oil—and the money—have finally started to flow. But Premier Williams still isn’t satisfied because the federal government’s share of oil revenues is four times that of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The success of the bet on offshore oil is clear enough, but for more than 20 years, Ottawa and St. John's have been at odds over how the revenue should be divided and taxed. Above all, how does oil fit in to the calculation of equalization—the federal program to ensure that all provinces can provide more or less the same level of public services?
. . .
Williams publicly mocked [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper as a man who breaks his promise, a petty man who cannot be trusted, a buddy of the oil companies, a man who "just keeps on changing his colours in order to suit whatever the political need is at the time." Perhaps worst of all, Williams sneeringly referred to Harper as Steve. This is not, first of all, a familarity that Harper encourages. More important, Steve was the name that the maladroit U.S. President George W. Bush once used when the two leaders met in Washington. For Williams, that was a perfect set-up.
Newfoundlanders apparently enjoy watching their premier chew the scenery on the national stage. They gave him 70% of the popular vote in last October’s provincial election.
A rather different take is offered by Edward G. Hollett, who lives and works in St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Equalization is a top-up scheme. Provincial governments that don't collect enough revenues from their sources to meet a national average get a transfer from the federal government. The money doesn't come from other provincial governments. It comes from federal revenues, from things like personal and corporate incomes taxes. That's your pocket and mine, whether you live in Petawawa or Pasadena.
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[Danny Williams is] basically arguing that every taxpayer everywhere in Canada should funnel cash into the local provincial bank account based not merely on a political promise but because this province deserves it somehow. Spending more money per person than seven other provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador wants more still. And that's despite reaping huge windfalls from high oil and ore prices.The debt, you say? Well, those same taxpayers from St. John's to Victoria can also see the same provincial government doing nothing of consequence about its own debt burden. There may be something coming in the next budget but they likely heard loudly and clearly the recent admission by finance minister Tom Marshall that they'd done very little - some might say nothing - to reduce the provincial debt load despite running surpluses and still boosting public spending over the past couple of years well beyond the rate of inflation.
I’ve always wondered why Danny Williams feels morally entitled to vast quantities of taxpayer dollars when, thanks to lucrative oil resources, his province is now earning more than the national average. The equalisation programme may have originally been intended to aid have-not provinces but, clearly, it is now just another trough for powerful pigs politicians.
Here’s what Premier Williams looked like in today’s Halifax Chronicle Herald.
Background: Mr Williams has admitted talking on his cellphone while driving, an offence under Newfoundland law.
