labradore

"We can't allow things that are inaccurate to stand." — The Word of Our Dan, February 19, 2008.

Monday, April 02, 2007

The Black Armband Brigade

Ever-so-predictably, Greg Locke joins the Black Armband Brigade, wringing his hands over Confederation, moping over what might have been:

How would politics, business and social structure be different than it is. Would we be like Iceland, Ireland …or even Malta!
Aha! A new one for the crypto-separatists. Malta. Greg, Chairman Dan, Sue Kelland-Dyer, Averill Baker, Lisa Moore, and the rest who are entranced by the entirely phony comparisons to Iceland and Ireland can perhaps explain: what are the Icelandic, Irish, and now Maltese equivalents of Labrador?

When is the CBC going to start underwriting those documentaries comparing Labrador to Yukon or the NWT, anyway?

He continues:
Sadly, I’ve been to Canada. Spent half of my life there and guess what? They don’t want us. Never did. What they wanted was to complete their country, from “sea to shining sea” …not to mention the natural resources. Like all colonialists, for Canada, it was always about what they could take out, not put back in. They didn’t think that once they took over everything they would have to actually feed and house the dirty little buggers.
Greg Locke, whose technically-proficient but otherwise intellectually dubious book "Newfoundland: Journeys Into a Lost Nation" pays just enough attention to Labrador to whinge about Churchill Falls, has some gall complaining, with no basis in fact, about Canada's supposed resource colonialism.

Perhaps Greg Locke can explain, what natural resources did Canada want? Which ones did they get?

And in his description of "colonialists", he captures perfectly, mutatis mutandis, the attitude of Newfoundland colonialist-nationalists towards Labrador. Why is the almost entirely fictitious Canadian "colonialism" towards Newfoundland worthy of denunciation, at annual and more frequent intervals, while Newfoundland's very real colonialist past — and present — in Labrador goes utterly unaddressed by the St. John's literati and glitterati?

The dead Beothucks get more sympathy from Newfoundland nationalists and the cultural élites in Town, than living Labradorians, of whatever ethnicity, do.

Indeed, those who dare raise Newfoundland's own little domestic colonialist streak are condemned by those same literati and gliterati as, at best, "whiners", at worst, four-letter epithets.

Locke continues:
What use are those MPs when they are 1/ beholding to the party over the people who voted or them and 2/ Newfoundland has no voting power in Canada.
Setting aside the overcorrection ("beholding")... the "Newfoundland has no voting power in Canada" is utterly bizarre. Newfoundland, with six MPs, obviously has a voting power greater than zero. And perhaps this point is too subtle for a Townie nationalist, but can't the same argument be made, mutatis mutandis, for Labrador's position within the province of which it is supposedly a part? After all, with only four seats in the provincial legislature, compared to Newfoundland's six in the House of Commons or Senate, wouldn't that make Labrador's provincial voting power 2/3 of zero?

When Newfoundland nationalists start being honest with the facts, and when they finally come to terms with the hypocrisy of how Newfoundland does onto its own little colony pretty well everything that Newfoundlanders claim, rightly or wrongly — and it's almost always wrongly — Canada does to them, then, and only then, will they find any sympathy in this corner.

And even then, not very much.

7 Comments:

At 1:17 AM, April 02, 2007 , Blogger Mark said...

When Canada, in its colonialist fashion, "takes" resources from us, does it cart them off in umnarked trucks? Are there little french elves in Maple Leaf emblazoned trousers that swarm our mines, forests, shcools of fish and deposits of oil and "steal" them when nobody's looking? Do they send in a state militia and make off with plundered booty? Just how is it done?

How is it that even somebody as smart as GL cannot come to terms with the notion that our natural resources, regulated ENTIRELY by our provincial government, are sold on the international marketplace. They are not carted away by oppressive government officials from Canada. It's the market, It ain't perfect, maybe it ain't fair. But if you think it's hurting NL, and maybe it is, then your problem lies with market economics and global trade, not with Canadian federalism, or Newfoundland's continued status within it.

The exception, of course, is fish, and while no one in this corner will defend the federal government's management of that resource from 1950-1990, it's still easily argued that at present (as in the past), the federal government spends multiples more money managing the fishery then it receives back in income tax, etc. I.e. it's hard to claim the feds are "making" any money off of it. Say nothing of the EI mess it has created as a perpheral component of the industry.

There are probably dozens of good reasons for Newfoundland to separate and try to emulate Iceland, or wherever else. I say "probably" because I have yet to hear one. If you believe that sovereignty will suddenly change the province's ability to sell its resources, or more correctly, to use its own resources and sell something else would be improved by virtue of some new found nationhood, here's a newflash: There is absolutely nothing, aside from our own lack of ambition, entrepreneurialism or risk capital preventing us from doing that now. Not with iron ore, not with copper, not with oil, or just about anything else.

There is no jurisdictional barrier to Newfoundland and Labrador doing anything with its own resources that would somehow be solved via separation. None.

As for Iceland and Ireland, one of the keys to their survival was allowing half their respective population to leave when times got tough at various periods in their history. There are more Icelanders in Canada than in Iceland. Somehow that glamorous side of the Icelandic story is glossed over by the NL nationalists when they lament for Iceland in one breath and cry over outmigration in another. In a similar vein, check and see if Iceland has 400 municipalities, and thousands of km of highways to maintain. That comparison always gets overlooked too.

If Newfoundlanders want to emulate Iceland, they'll drop the novel writing romantic version of it and mandate resettlement to only 20 communities while allowing half the population to leave. Methinks that version of the Icelandic comparison will probably not meet with such enthusiastic response around the bay. Heck, as a storyline I doubt it would even get a Canada Council grant, but I digress...

 
At 1:19 AM, April 02, 2007 , Blogger Erik Sorenson said...

Having raised the "what if" question at the beginning, Locke never answers it. Just more whining. Since Demented Danny does it so well, it must be the national duty of all NLers to whine incessantly.

Never offers a solution, just whine, ehine, whine.

Labrador should secede from NL. Why be associated with the world's biggest collection of permanent losers with otstretched hands?

 
At 1:25 AM, April 02, 2007 , Blogger Mark said...

Oh but Erik, if Labrador is allowed to separate, they won't be alone. Those of us living west of "the Overpass" will want to join them. It may be the only way to wrestle our "Fair Share" of the oil resources on the continental shelf away from those townies.

Wally, we should start a "Fair Deal for the rest of Newfoundland" website. Whaddaya say?

Think about it. The CNLOPB is stacked with townies, all the economic benefits of the industry are in St. John's, and there hasn't been a fabrication job west of Bull Arm since we discovered oil.

If we separated from the "Colony of Avalon" we could stake a claim to our proportionate entitlement of royalties, or at least stake our claim to the natural gasin the Laurentian basin.

partition = patriotism

 
At 1:35 AM, April 02, 2007 , Blogger Mark said...

Yes - I know, apparently the new Firefox has spellcheck built in...

 
At 8:11 AM, April 02, 2007 , Blogger Old Brooktrout said...

The Bourgoise revolutionaries in St. John's always forget that the failure to return to some kind of autonomy (and I do stress the "kind of") was rooted in their own failure to develop structures of local governance. That may have been on of the primary goals of Commission of Government, but its failings in this regard were the failings of the people themselves to organize. The Depression was universal, but poverty never halted Labrador Inuit communities from developing local councils. At Confederation, there were many Labrador communities that had enjoyed forms of community governance for 40 years; all of that was replaced by "welfare colonialism" from St. John's. It really is long past the time for the heavy-lidded sentimentality for the vanished past to end. Enough already, jeesh.

 
At 2:13 PM, April 09, 2007 , Blogger MichaelOBrien66 said...

I'm from west of the overpass . . . I want OUR country back! That includes all of the Island and at least part of Labrador! All who are willing to pull their own weight instead of relying on money from elsewhere!

This isn't whining. It is asserting. Giving up our Nationhood (officially, never in reality) was the biggest mistake.

How can one ever possibly assume that Dependence is better than Independence?

While Canada and Newfoundland can both work, and Newfoundland and Labrador can work together, we should all fight for autonomy (you too, Labrador!) and strip down this massively oversized, ineffective Federal Government. Rebuild the federation, from the bottom up!

 
At 11:59 PM, April 09, 2007 , Blogger WJM said...

I'm from west of the overpass . . . I want OUR country back! That includes all of the Island and at least part of Labrador!

Which part does it include?

Which part does it not?

All who are willing to pull their own weight instead of relying on money from elsewhere!

Where are those people to be found?

Certainly not in our current provincial government.

This isn't whining. It is asserting. Giving up our Nationhood (officially, never in reality)

When and how was Labrador part of this "nation"?

How can one ever possibly assume that Dependence is better than Independence?

How far do you take this?

Labrador was described as a "dependency" of Newfoundland before 1949.

Should Labrador become independent of Newfoundland, too?

and strip down this massively oversized, ineffective Federal Government.

Measure for measure, or per-capita for per-capita, the provincial govermnent is fare more oversized.

And subjectively, at least, much more ineffective.

I'd like to strip IT down and rebuild it from the bottom up, too.

 

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