Let's all just take a breath today. A well-deserved breath.
What we did on election night is not like walking up with a tattoo in your Vegas motel room, asleep on the suitcase rack.
Not nearly as serious.
We simply produced a minority government that now has to work with other MHA’s to produce great public policy and manage the finances.
This should always be the goal regardless of minority or majority governments.
Dwight Ball said the electorate has spoken and that collaboration is what they want.
I would argue that is always want we've wanted since 1949, instead of electing majorities that get intoxicated with power as soon as they are elected, instead of working in a collaborative manner.
In any case, if we only ever gave those staggering majorities to two parties, we often fed that arrogance and presumption to whomever was the leader of those parties at the time.
On election night, we did at least two things: first, we put a check on the Liberal, father-knows-best, opportunistic dynasty by setting them back a few notches; and secondly, the NDP conscience — which has always lain latent in every Newfoundlander and Labradorian’s minds and preference — came out to vote, where and when it matters.
Despite their gains, I really don’t think there is a PC story here at all, in the wake of this election. Unless you want to count temper tantrums about “why things can’t be like it’s always been!”
I didn’t want Skategate to drag on past two days. And I certainly don't want us tying ourselves up in knots over this one.
It’s great news for everyone in that we may have turned a page on the rot that has always been dripping from this province’s politics.
Paul Lane doesn’t want to be speaker. Eddie Joyce won't be in a room with Sherry Gambin-Walsh.
If either of them happen to eat their words, we’ve all been deceived again and the election was a script.
Put all that aside, and the math simply rests on the fact that the Liberals will have to compromise with the NDP or the independents.
Just has it should be.
Please, let's all get to work — the 40 MHA's and the rest of us, too.
Mark Power
St. John’s
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