May The Harper Bless And Keep You
- and shine His face upon you
- and lift His countenance upon you
- and grant you peace
Amen
- and shine His face upon you
- and lift His countenance upon you
- and grant you peace
Amen
Designed by Gabfire slightly modified by stageleft
Not too smart on Harpers part, methinks.
I don’t know any polling figures, but I always thought Williams enjoyed good popular support for his feisty ways.
If its true, and he does enjoy popular support, Harper shouldn’t have pulled this adversarial move – if he wants any gains in that part of the country anyways.
Then again, Harper may not feel that Newfoundland is necessary for a majority, and just wants to come off as ‘decisive’ and ‘a leader’.
It’s long been profitable for Provincial premiers to blame Ottawa for their ills. Everybody gets in on it, and Danny Williams has been quite profligate in Ottawa-bashing of late.
It pays some short-term benefits for him in terms of mobilizing the Newfoundlander “nationalist” vote, but let’s face it, many Newfoundlanders won’t have to choose between Williams and his opponent in the next Newfoundland election–instead, they’ll have to choose between Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and his opponents in the next Alberta election.
I see this as little more than laying the groundwork for negotiations. Everyone wants to look through the lens of how this plays out in the next election (a rather cynical view), but I think this is Harper setting the terms by which Ottawa will be engaged in inter-governmental dealings and that Williams will find his traditional blowhard-style methods of negotiation to be fruitless.
Remember, Williams’ bluster lost Hebron for the Newfoundlanders and scared away a lot of potential investment in offshore oil drilling that could have come into his province very quickly–at a time of record-high fuel prices, that’s saying a lot.
I haven’t followed the supposed Harper promise closely enough to know if he actually broke it. It wouldn’t suprise me if he, or any other politician, did.
Having said that, I can see why Harper is responding the way that he is. Williams is a blowhard who has now pissed off both a Liberal and a Conservative PM. Williams made the first move in this affair with his ads in newspapers across Canada denouncing Harper. As RJ notes he has also chased away significant investment in the offshore oil reserves with his brash manner and soviet style negotiating tactics. Williams probably had this one coming.
Whooee! Well, I reckon it makes a good show when a coupla Cons get t’ scrappin’ — ’specially when one of ‘em’s a Newfy an’ can toss out a few colourful turns of phrase. It’s fun stuff and why should the Grits always get all the infightin’ fun?
Lookin’at from where I sit, it looks like DannyBoy’s just tryin’ t’ get the best deal fer his rocky patch an’ Harpoon’s mainly tryin’ t’ get votes across Canada an’ he knows there ain’t too many seats out there in downeasthopelesswelfarecaseland.
JB