8/22 Never Forget

Stop for a second and take a deep breath.

Can't you taste the difference in the air? I knew it as soon as I awoke yesterday morning. Things were different.

We are officially living in a post-MOU world, and nothing will ever be the same.

I mean, its not a legally binding agreement, and we have very few details other than that it is the greatest deal in the history of time (or at least since Europeans traded smallpox for North America in the 17th century), but still. It's the thought that counts.

However, like all earth-shattering events that may or may not happen in the future, our new post-MOU world raises important questions. Namely, whether or not we'll have an Opposition on October 10th, or even if we need one.

Bill Rowe has been abusing the word 'juggernaut' over the past few days in talking about the Williams government machine, and as much as he is in desperate need of a thesaurus, he has a very good point; Williams may as well attach a steamroller to the front of his RV. Obviously, this throws some doubt on future existence of an Opposition party for the next 4 years or so.

This question of democracy comes on the heels of this wonderous deal-to-probably-make-a-deal and the Premier's intentions to not set it before the legislature for any kind of vote or examination of the details. But don't take my word for it:

"I hadn't even considered [bringing the details before the legislature] quite frankly[...][The opposition] would probably carry government in on their shoulders and pass it with a blink … This deal, is such a good deal for the government of Newfoundland and Labrador, that ratification wouldn't be an issue."
- Premier Danny Williams, according to CBC.ca

The current question of the future of the Opposition in this province has divided the province into two key camps:

1. Those people who love Danny Williams and who believe he can do no wrong but think there should be an Opposition there just to prove democractically that he can actually do no wrong; and,
2. Those people who love Danny Williams and believe he can do no wrong so there is no real reason to have an Opposition anyways because it will only slow down Danny's progress (made on a go-forward basis)

The best exemplary of this view was expressed by Minister Kathy Dunderdale calling into VOCM's BackTalk yesterday afternoon to reassure us that we don't need to be worried about the future of our democracy if/when the PCs win all 48 seats in the province.

Her rationale for this came in two major points. After reiterating that August 22nd was the greatest day in the history of the province, she first asserted that Premier Williams legitimately is Newfoundland's Messiah by informing us that:

"He is such a consensus builder [...] everyone in government is on the same page when we go into the House [...] he's such a visionary and I'm very excited and grateful to be working along with him."
- Kathy Dunderdale

With the memory of Fabian Manning and crab fishermen haunting my dreams, I was extremely worried that some MHAs may dissent with the Premier. I'm sure you can imagine my relief to find out that Danny Williams is committed to making sure everyone on his side of the House has the exact same position on every issue as he does. It's good to know that a 100% majority of PCs in the province would move as fast as possible to make Danny's visions a reality.

Secondly, and more importantly, the Minister made the same argument that most pro-Blue Flood indivduals have made on the airwaves: namely, that the current Opposition is basically useless and accomplishes nothing anyways, so by having no Opposition nothing will change at all (except that things will get better because Danny will get things done even faster).

This argument makes perfect sense. The Opposition has been too busy nitpicking silly things like transparency issues over fibre-optic cables or which government officials knew what about hormone test problems or whether or not selling FPI was handled properly. Most of the time the Opposition itself has admitted these are good ideas anyways, so why should we elect them again just to stand in the way of great progress? If there is one thing that history has shown, it's that when good ideas are involved, un-checked governments are physically incapable of acting in a corrupt manner.

So when the government says that getting our MOU was a beautiful, historic day for this province, they were right. Whether or not the deal ultimately turns out in a few years to be as marvellous as we're told or not (I'm not an economist, I only play one on television), that is not the real reason for the Premier's giddiness on Wednesday.

What was really happening at that press conference was a pulic approval-rating sanction to turn government up on Warp 9 in reshaping the province as our Prophet-in-Chief sees fit by any means so long as its "a good idea".

So remember where you were at noon on August 22nd, 2007: the day democracy in Newfoundland and Labrador became obsolete.