ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — When he was in high school, Premier Dwight Ball was told he was too small to play for Elwood Regional High School’s varsity hockey team.
Ball has been tying his skates for as long as he can remember. A former western director for senior hockey in this province, he knows the scores before he goes to bed and still finds time to strap on the skates as often as he can.
When he was a child, Ball walked over an hour a day with a full hockey bag to get his chance on the ice at 6 a.m. as often as he could.
Despite a love and commitment for the game, nothing came easy. He was 5’3" and 95 pounds when graduation day came.
“I remember the coach looking at me — I really wanted to play on the varsity team — and the coach said, ‘I don’t think you’re big enough. These players are getting bigger.’ I took offence to that,” Ball said in a year-end interview with The Telegram.
Ball says he had to find a way to change his game, to get stronger, to skate faster. His hockey idol is Montreal Canadiens legend Guy Lafleur, so he fashioned himself as a more finesse player to keep playing the game at the level he wanted.
But there was some rough stuff along the way.
“I remember one fight that I had. This was when a fella was playing, my brother was on the same team as me. He hit him pretty hard,” said Ball.
“It came out of nowhere, so I responded to help my brother. That worked out OK, but the guy that fight happened to be with is still around. We still joke every day how we were both surprised we were actually doing this. Just caught in the moment.”
Things changed for Ball after high school.
“The irony of all this is finishing high school at 5’3" (and) 95 pounds, when I finished pharmacy school I was just over 6’0" and 210 pounds,” he said.
Ball’s ability to adjust has been put to the test throughout 2019.
For Ball, 2019 saw the Hibernia Dividend Agreement bringing $2.3 billion in new money to the province in March, moving on to an election that cut his party from a majority to a minority, to a raucous fall sitting of the House of Assembly, with the spectre of Muskrat Falls and increased electricity rates haunting throughout it all.
Ball maintains 2016 is the hardest year he’s had to face in his political career, but 2019 had its highs and its lows.
He points to health-care infrastructure being built as one of the highlights of the year.
“The building is going to be open at the Corner Brook long-term care site on budget and on time. The acute care is started. Grand Falls-Windsor is moving along, the last piece of steel will go up on that soon. Botwood is moving, Green Bay, in spring, will open up this year. Moving the replacement for the Waterford,” he said.
“Go to Labrador, Trans-Labrador highway, we’re getting that done. Mining opportunities in Labrador West. There’s good news everywhere around the province.”
For the lows, the most recent sitting of the House of Assembly is top of mind. Fisheries Minister Gerry Byrne was forced to apologize after remarks made against two members of the Opposition. Minister Christopher Mitchelmore received the stiffest penalty ever handed out by the House of Assembly over his handling of the appointment of Carla Foote to a job at The Rooms.
“It was disappointing for all of us. There’s a lesson to be learned from all of that. A chance to reflect on it. Every single time we’re stuck with disappointment, take the lesson. Don’t repeat it. Take that lesson and make the changes that are required,” he said.
“That’s the approach I’ve taken. Of all the challenges I’ve had to face in four years, there’s not one we couldn’t solve with strong partnerships. That’ll be the approach I’ll take to reset the legislative agenda for the next sitting. We just have to be better.”
Typically, a minority government does not hit its four-year mandate. The current situation at the House is the longest-running minority government in this province’s history — the previous minority, in 1971, lasted one afternoon.
Ball says it’s going to take real collaboration to make sure the current situation can last and prevent another election in 2020.
“The wheels come off a minority when 40 people can’t find a way to get together, to work together. That’s why the minority will fail. I’m going to do everything I can to have all 40 members thinking about Newfoundlanders and Labradorians first, not just about their political future,” he said.
“In a minority government situation, we have to make the people of the province, what impacts them, and we have to start addressing their concerns, making them the focus.”
Ball says a successful 2020 would mean finding a way to mitigate a doubling of electricity rates in Newfoundland and Labrador once the Muskrat Falls project is complete. The Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities is expected to file its report on recommendations for mitigation at the end of January, from which the government will take its direction on finding a way to keep electricity rates around where they are today.
“I’ll be glad to have that settled away. That has taken up so much time of my years in politics,” he said.
As Ball prepares to face a leadership review at the Liberal convention in 2020, he says he’s not thinking about whether this year could mark his last on the eighth floor of the Confederation Building.
“My big focus now are the priority areas I just mentioned: electricity rates and the fiscal stabilization plan, budget preparation,” he said.
“I really don’t think about my last day in politics. At some point we know it will come. It always comes. I had a birthday (this month). It happens. Birthdays come and go, seasons come and go, premiers come and go. What I’m thinking about right now is what I’m going to do, what people ask me to do.
“At some point, I don’t know when, a decision will be made. We’ll do what premiers do, we’ll do what politicians do. I don’t give up too easy.”
