Sunday, April 1, 2007

The Magic Wand

First, let me say this regarding the 30,000 citizens of Labrador.

Evidently 30,000 citizens from any part of the Rock are more important to past and present provincial governments than Labrador's people. I say this because this population of Labrador has been mentioned several times in a bad light by the hosts of Open-Line Shows. They usually speak of our population when someone from Labrador talks about the unfair treatment of our people by our provincial governments.

A caller's topic might be the Trans-Labrador Highway, low price Hydro Power that we should be getting and benefits from any further development for it's people or the caller might be talking about the need for Water and Sewer in all Labrador Coastal Communities. We, the people in Labrador are usually comparing what we lack with the much better services in parts of Newfoundland which has a equal or smaller population.

When someone such as those open line hosts do this they should not forget about all the wealth that leaves Labrador.

Anyway, here is a fantasy story for you that may or may not have some roots in reality.

Suppose Danny Williams was God Almighty (DannyGod). What might be some of the things he would do with his staff or magic wand, I wonder?

1. The first wave of that wand might create a Fixed-Link from the island to Labrador. A Link that would make it easy for people to move freely to and fro between our land masks. A Link that would allow the movement of resources from Labrador to the Rock without interfering with the movement of the people.

2. Maybe, on more of a grand scale, he would flick that wand to put all of Labrador's bountiful wealth right in the middle of St. John's and make the BigLand disappear out of existance. Wouldn't Danny love that one?

3. Might he then wave that wand, to change the name of this province back to 'Newfoundland', tell Ottawa where to go and turn his province into it's own country again. Him and most dignitaries on the island of Newfoundland could then say, all across the country, from St. John's to Port aux basques instead of like it is now, all across the province, from St. John's to Port aux basques, or Danny criss-crossed the province many times in his Motorhome during the last election. Strange though , we didn't see him in his motorhome in Labrador.

The point of all this is that Labrador is only thought of by St. John's when they want to take our resources and move them somewhere else.

Lie to us, con us, butter us up, do whatever it takes to rob us, even act like you care now, by saying that you are gonna Cheap Seal our highway without the Federal Governments help.

Well Danny Boy, let me give you a wake-up call. The Feds help has already outnumbered the provinces 9 to 1. So take a $100 million or so from the billions of dollars received in equalization over the years and put it into Labrador Roads. Sure! You wouldn't even miss that, would you? It's still Federal money you know, that equalization money, I mean.

They say that for every dollar the province sends to Ottawa, Ottawa send two dollars back, so why all the crying in your beer? Are the people of Newfoundland starting to feel like Labrador has been feeling for fifty years I wonder, second class citizens in a province that mostly cares about St. John's? Only in Newfoundland's case, it's second class citizens in Canada where the Ottawa mostly cares about Quebec and Ontario because of their voting power.


Good thing Danny isn't God or Ottawa and Labrador would suffer even more.

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