What did people expect when they elected 31 Liberals? It was obvious a year ago the Liberals and Dwight Ball were merely biding their time, waiting for their turn in power, and had no designs to improve your life or the province’s future.
“We didn’t know how bad the government’s finances really were,” is a pathetic excuse to justify breaking campaign promises. If your kid came up with something similar, you’d admonish him or her, and say, “Well, you should think through the consequences of a promise before you make it.”
Ah, consequences. It is a concept some voters simply can’t get their mind around. Let’s see: replace one arrogant conservative party with another arrogant conservative party, and perhaps things will be different.
On the plus side, at least people had the good sense not to elect NDP Leader Earle McCurdy. With all the problems the province is facing, the last thing Bennett and Ball need to face every day is the ranting of a socialist with a talent for one-liners. Enough people are already howling about the new “deficit-reduction levy” that taxes lower-income people at a higher percentage than those with quadruple the earnings.
Last fall’s provincial election was a critical juncture. Voters had to decide: do I want more of the same (i.e., Liberal, Tory, Liberal, Tory) or am I going to send the two arrogant conservative parties a message and create a credible three-party political system in Newfoundland (and Labrador)?
The answer was resounding: “More of the same, and thank you very much, sir!”
Amidst the anger and shock over Bennett’s maleficent measures, imagine whether the Liberals would have dared be so brazenly vile (“A head tax on them all!”) if they had a minority government rather than a 24-seat majority.
Instead, the electorate saw fit to decimate the NDP even further, even though its two members talk more sense than all seven Official Opposition members combined.
And about those opposition members: did people not realize that after 12 years of bungling and manipulative rule, the Progressive Conservative had earned a reward of obliteration, rather than the good offices of opposition? Apparently not.
And so, the past week’s whining and complaining is somewhat remiss. You get what you vote for. People voted for more conservatism, and more conservatism is what they got.
Bennett’s taxes, fees and levies will, as has been widely pointed out, bring hardship to a lot of people, and push the economy toward recession. Her budget is the opposite of what needed to be done, if the problem were approached rationally and empathetically. But rationality and empathy are as alien to small-c conservatives as to their big-c Conservative cousins.
It has taken a few years longer than it should have, but people other than the “negative naysayers” are suggesting the government should kill the Muskrat Falls project.
It is better to stop a colossal mistake four years in than to continue it for another 50 years. The $1.3 billion given to Nalcor Energy this year, more wisely used, would negate the need for all those repugnant news taxes, fees, levies, etc.
But the government won’t cancel Muskrat Falls, because it cares more about itself than it cares about you. Cancelling the project would leave the government with a $4-billion debt. Continuing with the project, although foolish, will wrack up $9 billion or more in costs, but the government will be able to gouge ratepayers to get its money back.
Good governance is so reassuring.
Brian Jones is a copy editor at The Telegram. He can be reached at [email protected].
