The Furey-Dome and Looming Elections

The Reading List for 05 May 2023

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

There’s an election coming.

Well, two actually.

One federal and one provincial.

All the signs are there.

Two clues.

One is an announcement Wednesday evening that the provincial government is going to build a new medium-sized theatre in the Sin Jawns area. They’ve decided to call next year The Year of the Arts. Got a logo to go with it, complete with a puffin on it so you know it is serious.

There’ll be a few million handed out this year. No idea to whom or why. All that will follow. Typical government these days.

One-time millions the official news release said, which tells you this is not about cultural renewal. Not about creating something in rural Newfoundland or Labrador that the mainlanders might fly down to see. Not even something to get the Townie beyond Costco for a night.

This is bait for Sin Jawns voters of the Dipper persuasion.

The other clue is word the government will build an 850 kilometre long trail from L’anse aux Meadows to Gros Morne. Great project. Not sure of the economic pull of it but there’s definitely a chunk of make-work jobs… err votes. That’s really the point.

What do Sin Jawns and Gros Morne have in common? Draw a line from one to the other and you will pass through a third point - central Newfoundland - struck by a bit of guv’mint money and a visit from Premier Pan hisself just recently. You’ll even pass through Clarenville, where PMJT flitted a few weeks ago to talk up daycare spaces in a place where there are more people looking for nursing homes than there are we’uns looking for a minder while the parents work.

All places where Liberal votes federally and provincially are soft. Squishy. Open to change. Places where Pierre Poilievre and the federal Conservatives have been campaigning heavily already. Where they have done very well before. Pierre was here in February - hence the sudden visit by PMJT - and he is coming back again to Corner Brook and to Town.

The Cons are targeting ridings across Canada where they can pick up a few votes and maybe win the seat. They have the tools to spot the opportunities. They have the talent to exploit them. There are more than enough opportunities to help the Cons win the next federal election.

There are a few seats in Newfoundland and Labrador up for grabs federally. This is not your parents’ Liberal Party and the civil war between the federal Cons and the local Pea Seas is long over. The federal weakness is matched by provincial weakness as well, since the two parties seem to be sharing the same brain trust these days.

If the Cons do well, the Pea Seas will likely do well. Much better if they pick the right leader. The math is simple. Two elections and the provincial Liberals barely held onto office. They are not any stronger now than they were.

Hence, the open-taps budget to flood the place with cash. It is the crudest of crude strategies. It might work. A rock will drive a nail just as surely as a hammer might, let alone a compressed air gun. It just won’t be as clean and elegant. There might be some blood.

There is an election coming.

You can smell the pork burning.