Do you trust Premier Dwight Ball and his ministers when they say they will do something?
If you do, you need to ask yourself why, given their record.
If you don’t, you need to ask yourself why it matters enough for you to do something about it.
One of the hallmarks of bad government is systematic deception.
In Labrador, where a large portion of Indigenous people live, people have become the victims of systematic deception by the Ball Liberal provincial government. This deception will have dire consequences.
As the Muskrat Falls reservoir began to fill, Nunatsiavut President Johannes Lampe was on the record stating that Premier Ball has repeatedly betrayed his people’s trust by ignoring their concerns and questions, and that Premier Ball intentionally ran down the clock until it was too late to implement scientific recommendations to prevent methylmercury contamination of the local environment and food sources.
This is despite the premier’s promise to those very Indigenous people that he would abide by the scientific recommendations produced by the very committee he agreed to establish.
The premier’s promise did not hold water. He gave his word to Labrador’s Indigenous communities and then broke it.
As President Lampe says, if this is what reconciliation is all about, then we want no part of it.
If you’re not an Indigenous person or a Labradorian, is this something you’re really concerned about? Do you care? Do you need to care?
Most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians don’t see how the Ball Liberal government deception in Labrador affects them.
But deception is an established practice with the Ball Liberals.
The premier’s promise did not hold water. He gave his word to Labrador’s Indigenous communities and then broke it.
Think about what he has promised you.
He promised not to raise your taxes. He promised not to cut jobs. He promised to wipe out patronage in hiring. He promised joint fisheries management. He promised to fight to deliver fairness on equalization. He promised democratic reform. He promised an economic growth plan that would transform our economy.
He has broken every one of those promises, and more besides.
Bad Liberal government is already affecting you.
It’s affecting you in high taxes, in the lack of well-paying jobs and in the flight of young people from our province.
Honest leadership is the road to good government. Dishonest and deceptive Liberal leadership is the road to ruin.
You need to care, because this is your province that is slipping.
Indigenous people, Labradorians are suffering from Premier Ball’s blatant broken promises, just as you are suffering from a raft of other promises this premier has broken.
He gives his solemn word, time and again, and then he breaks it, time and again.
Does that inspire your trust?
And if not, then how can you rely on his leadership of your province?
How is it OK to watch while your expectations are dashed and your province’s fortunes spiral down?
How are this province’s youth — our province’s best prospects — supposed to have faith in their future here when the person at the wheel cannot be trusted to keep his word?
Yes, this matters.
It matters to Labradorians. It matters to Newfoundlanders. It matters to you.
Trust has to be earned. When it is consistently broken, it’s time to place your trust somewhere else.
Ches Crosbie,
Leader of the Official Opposition
