Much to everyone's surprise, the Pea Seas won handily in the Fogo Island-Cape Freels by-election not merely winning the seat vacated by the death from throat cancer of Liberal cabinet minister Derek Bragg but racking up almost 50% more votes than Bragg’s former constituency assistant managed to get.
It wasn't a close vote at all.
And it was not for lack of effort. The Liberals threw everything they had into it, including Fred Hutton, the personable and hardworking cabinet minister who just pulled off for himself the upset in Conception Bay East - Bell Island.
People will point to reasons for the Liberal defeat. People will point to the crab crisis. Sure. A fisheries dispute will affect a fisheries district.
Others will point to the controversy over justice minister John Hogan's remarks about sexual assault survivors’ experience in court.
Meh.
The Liberals' veneration of Bragg as some sort of political saint, with all the gushing posts on social media long after the funeral, well into the campaign and the hyped announcement that the Liberals would rename a strip of pavement after Bragg.
They are signs, not causes.
Symptoms, not the root cause of the illness.
Look at the longer term trends.
Provincially and federally, Liberals in Newfoundland and Labrador have been struggling almost since taking office. Remember Dwight Ball’s spectacular meltdown and the collapse of Liberal support in 2016 triggered by their fumbling of NALCOR boss Ed Martin. People didn’t like Dwight’s flip-flop on the HST or the budget, with its bizarre plan to backload all the political pain, but they really got their measure of Dwight in the fuss over Martin’s gold-plated pension.
As for the budget, whether some Liberal staffer was just stupid or trying to be too cute by half, no one believed it was serious and sure enough within 18 months, there was a new finance minister and we were all back to the massive deficits again rather than living up to the promise to fix the government’s financial problems.
But here’s the thing: try this on yourself and your friends.
Can you think of any genuine Liberal political successes since then?
Ones they did and got public credit for.
COVID?
Everyone in power got credit for COVID whether what they did was brilliant or stupid. So no. That’s not one.
Cash from Ottawa?
Yes, but that really didn't produce any political success, though, did it? Lasting support in the polls *for* Liberals.
No.
Anything else?
Don't worry if you are struggling for an answer. That negative space - the fact you cannot think of any Liberal successes that define them - *is* the answer.
Now that you see the void, you cannot un-see it.
Even the Saviour Doctor of Haiti has not produced any political life-saving operations.
Quite the opposite actually.
If someone asked you to think of all the blunders, fumbles, and scandals, you have a list that just keeps going.
Fishing trip.
Risley.
Bungled election.
Legault and Churchill Falls.
Fishery protest over-reaction.
And you can add a bunch of eye-rolling stuff like Tony Blair, the trips all over to boost the ego, the hockey hand-shake letter and all of that *on top* of hiring scandals, firing cabinet ministers, constant changes in political staff in the Premier’s Office and the stuff you might remember from Dwight’s time.
There’s a reason the Liberals lost the 2019 election - in effect - by being reduced to a minority and then barely won the 2021 fiasco despite running against zombies. What explains the latest slam in the face is the longer term trend in which the provincial Liberals failed to define themselves as anything, consciously tracked the federal Liberals on so many things so often even if it didn’t make sense for them provincially, embraced the dumbest of their predecessors’ dumb ideas like Muskrat Falls, and now reap the harvest of their work.
The provincial Liberals are beige. They have no identity. No defining goals. They are all over the place on everything all the time. All things to all people, chasing love, and in the end they stand for nothing. At least Justin Trudeau’s Liberals stand by their environmental policy but here lately even Justin’s local cousins cannot even stand behind that.
In 2015, you could start counting seats by party colour in Labrador West, head towards Sin Jawns, and the provincial Liberals had the workings of a majority by the time you got to the halfway point for seats at Goobies. On the Avalon, they locked it in place with the Pea Seas desperately holding on to a few hardcore seats around St. John’s. Now, less than a decade later, the Liberals have a strong presence on the northeast Avalon but their base across rural Newfoundland and into Labrador is weak, shaky, and looking a lot more like the quick clay around Muskrat Falls in a heavy rain.
If there was an election tomorrow, far too many people expect the Liberals to lose, which is why we haven’t had an election already. This is literally unprecedented in the past 75 years. Dwight Ball in 2019 was the first Prime Minister of Newfoundland and Labrador since the 1920s who failed to win a majority government on the second go at it. Andrew Furey did better than replacement Premiers like Roger Grimes or Tom Rideout or Paul Davis but neither of those faced a weak and almost invisible opposition. The idea the Liberals could be flung out of office after a mere 10 years in office or less is just shocking in Newfoundland and Labrador at any time since the time a century ago when Newfoundland’s legislature looked like an Italian parliament but without the sense of unity.
Now add in the fisheries demonstration and the images of confronting angry but peaceful protestors with police dressed like soldiers and carrying automatic weapons. On top of the fisheries problem itself, the political over-reaction symbolized the massive distance between the Liberals in government and where their constituents live, figuratively and literally. That’s why Liberal voters stayed home in Fogo Island-Cape Freels or went to the polls for a decent guy but who frankly was no John Efford. That makes the size of the Pea Sea victory an even stronger message to Liberals provincially and federally.
Bear in mind that in the fishery crisis itself, you had the clear sign that none of the political parties, but especially the governing Liberals, had been able to identify the problems in advance and work to settle the problems *before* they erupted with the calls for a political solution that itself would destroy the political compact on which so much rested economically and politically in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Voters could have put a pox on everyone’s house and voted Dipper but this was not a protest vote. It was purposeful. People didn’t stay home either. They showed up *and* voted Pea Sea. They meant it.
The Liberals weren’t supposed to win Conception Bay East - Bell Island. But they did. Heading into the Fogo Island-Cape Freels by-election every expectation was that the Furey Grits would win handily against the Pea Seas who were still the same disorganized bunch without any cash. But apparently knowing you are to be hanged in the morning *does* tend to focus the mind and it focused the Pea Seas sharply.
The Pea Seas put on a heavy push in the last week and a bit. The Liberals were not slackers. Everything came together with a big Pea Sea win in a seat the Liberals were supposed to take without much work what with their advantages: tragic death of incumbent, well-liked CA as candidate, momentum, money, organization, new doctors for the hospital and and on and on.
Now the Liberals face another by-election, which they should win handily according to the old wisdom, but about which there is now much doubt. They could roll to a general election but that would be risky and that would likely be too risky for the notoriously cautious Liberal caucus to stomach.
Lots of people think that Premiers and Prime Ministers alone decide when an election comes. Truth is they must sometimes coax, persuade, or browbeat caucuses out of comfort and complacency and division and fear. No leader wants to be charging down the field only to look behind and see their team standing in a line, not moving. And if the leaders cannot get the great mass of caucus up for a run, then they will sit and wait. Sometimes they are willing to wait for the inevitable in the comfortable chairs, racking up pensionable time as they await the defeat they already accept as inevitable. Not saying that is what is happening right now inside the Liberal caucus but watch what does happen. You’ll know pretty soon if they plan to rag the puck like in 2001 or like the Pea Seas did winding down to 2015.
The chances of the general election coming soon, as long signalled by Liberals, are rapidly fading. Only the phony brave, the naive, and anxious Pea Seas want an election now. The Liberals are at risk of feeling like it is 2001, even though the crowd on the other side are nowhere like the Pea Seas of early Danny times. What’s the same could well be the sense that the Liberals cannot pull out a win, that the odds are against them, that they have no idea how to shift things around, and that delaying at least offers the dull glimmer of imaginary hope that might let magic happen somewhere, sometime before the Grits are forced constitutionally to go to the polls in 2026.
Watch what happens next.
Quick close to the House with the budget barely passed? Odds get higher of that if the Pea Seas actually get smarter and find something new that sticks to the Liberals’ skin rather than just chase tired old lines the media uncovered. The Liberals might not want to be in the House if they lose a second time in a row.
Bigger picture challenge for the Pea Seas: learn from the Liberals’ many mistakes since 2015, including the big mistake highlighted here.
What of Andrew Furey himself? The longer the election delay goes, the less likely the Liberals are to win, and the faster Furey will leave even without an election. He wants to be Brian (Tobin) or Frank (McKenna). He didn’t take the job to be Roger, Tom, or Paul, after all.
The adage that “Opposition don’t win, but Government loses them” is certainly poignant in this case.
And with that said, Wakeham has no credence in taking any sensible credit for winning the byelection. But he will.
Arrogance and tone deaf behaviour from the Liberals is certainly not new a new behaviour after many years of government. There is enough history of previous Administration’s to see where this is heading.
Also evident in the mix is that the Liberals are yyt heavy in meaningful Cabinet members that shape Government’s direction or perceived direction. Strong Cabinet representation between the Avalon and Port Aux Basques is woeful and rural constituencies are taking note.
Maybe a new Premier’s Office in Springdale will stop the next byelection bleed?
Reactive policy is now systemic and a shift towards proactive policy is needed.