| Last updated at 1:45 AM on 22/07/07 |
Today is the day to reflect on Confederation 
The Telegram
Today’s date, July 22, usually passes each year in relative obscurity — a day, perhaps, with nothing more profound in its duration than the usual complaint about a crappy Newfoundland “summer” (Al Gore and his crowd of celebrity alarmists should stage their next concert for global-warming awareness in this neck of the woods, just to give that flavour-of-the-decade issue some realistic proportion).
But July 22 is a calendar mark that should be a part of the memory bank of anyone wise enough to question our status as Canadians, to ask why Newfoundland has to continually climb a steep mountain of mainland opinion that we’ve been a useless economic drag on the rest of the country since 1949, and that whatever tangible riches this island and Labrador brought to its new country have been reimbursed, and then some, by the unending generosity of Uncle Ottawa.
For it was on this date in 1948 that the future of Newfoundland was decided: an astonishing 84 per cent of the eligible voting population went to the polling booths for the second time within a month, with 52 per cent of those voters opting to let the Canadian wolf haul us into its den of perceived comfort.
You have to wonder what a real, bona fide, modern-day team of investigative reporters might have uncovered at the time, utilizing the kind of authority journalists can now wield, armed with an access-to-information law that would have permitted an unintimidated pick at the skullduggery that preceded the two referendums, and the possible tampering that may have taken place with the July 22 results.
And these matters are not academic, especially during this era of seemingly renewed Newf-bashing and broken contracts, and hard-line reciprocation from both the government and the bulk of the public. The resulting nationalistic temperature has risen as high as I’ve seen it, as charged as in the 1970s when a long-awaited wave of Newfoundland chauvinism lifted a subservient and insecure Newfoundland persona and sent it smashing against the rocks of revival.
Even if some of the conspiratorial accusations surrounding the 1948 events had a stronger scent of scandal than others, the package as a whole, the delivery of Newfoundland by Britain to Canada, had a stench, a rabbit guts-like aroma that remains in the air.
There’s no doubt that the Brits and the Canucks decided, without consulting the people who just happened to live here, that, by nook or by crook, the “Newfoundland problem,” as described by officials in both countries, would be resolved by having Newfoundland become part of Canada; that Confederation was added to the ballot of the first referendum at the insistence of Britain (after
all, how could the conspiracy to unite Newfoundland and Canada run its course if Confederation wasn’t a
voting option?); and that Canada heavily funded the pro-Confederate, Smallwood side, making the
process improper and decidedly unfair.
There’s also intrigue in the possibility that the July 22 vote actually favoured Responsible Government, but that the British-Canadian combo of contrivance ordered the count surreptitiously reversed, a scenario that has been making the rounds in Newfoundland for decades, ever since the alleged confession of a retired English civil servant that he was part of the illegal manoeuvre that gave Confederation its victory.
Aside from the nefarious factors surrounding the referendums, there’s also the argument made by many credible people that the negotiations leading to the Terms of Union were a disgraceful sham, another British-Canadian concoction with Newfoundland thrown a few crumbs in the corner, resulting in the province fighting constantly ever since in both the courts of law and public opinion for jurisdiction over its valued resources.
Separatism may be an impractical solution to these inequities, but a threat to separate unless those Terms of Union are renegotiated seems to me to be a plausible and workable tactic.
And what better day to consider such matters than July 22.
Bob Wakeham has spent more than 30 years as a journalist in Newfoundland and Labrador. He can be reached by
e-mail at letters@thetelegram.com.
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