Oh, Danny boy!

Minority governments don't seem to be the way of Newfoundland and Labrador, Tuesday nights provincial election on the far east coast returned Premier Danny Williams with an even larger majority than he had heading into the vote.

As they might say Boyo, Go Big, or Go home. Williams went big, the opposition, such as it was went home!

As the results were tabulated, the numbers all but wiped out the Liberals in the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature, as they managed to pick up only three of the of the 48 seats in the Legislature, a loss of eight from the last sitting of the legislature.

The NDP squeaked out one seat, while Mr. Williams troops collected the remaining 43. One seat remains to be elected, as the Liberal candidate died midway through the campaign making necessary the need to postpone that election until next month.

During the lead up to the campaign and during it, Williams played the patriot's card if you will, appealing to the pride of the Newfoundlander and Labradorian to support him in his renewed battle with the Feds in Ottawa.

It's long been a theme of Newfoundland politics ever since Joey Smallwood led the long time British colony and then independent nation into Confederation. It was a theme that Brian Peckford used to perfection during his reign and has once again found renewed fervor with Williams.

It apparently has resonated with the electorate which has provided him with a mandate to pretty well do whatever he feels is best. The opposition reduced to a few soon to be overworked politicians, lonely in numbers and most likely muted by the prospect of providing a cautionary voice in a legislature swarming with winning Conservatives.

Watching the NTV coverage off the satellite dish tonight was an interesting experience in futile spin control, as political operatives from the Liberals and NDP tried to put on the best face in what had to be a very demoralizing night.

What is left to see is if the overwhelming victory adds to the growing legend of Danny Williams, who is not one to shy away from bluster and with a full wind at his back after tonight could very well blow a storm all the way to 24 Sussex Drive, making for some interesting times for the current resident there.

Roy MacGregor captured the spirit of the night perfectly with this dispatch for the Globe and Mail.

Williams won big by making a 'have-not' province proud
ROY MacGREGOR
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
E-mail Roy MacGregor
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October 10, 2007 at 1:07 AM EDT

Nothing, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador likes to say, gets in the way of his Tuesday night hockey.

His staff has been known to cringe when presenting him with a scheduling conflict that simply cannot be avoided.

It is somewhat surprising, then, that Danny Williams missed Tuesday night – given that the only reason not to be at the rink was a provincial election in which the other side didn't even bother showing up.

As elections go, it was roughly the equivalent of firing pucks at a jersey draped over the crossbar. Final score: Williams's Conservatives 43, Liberals 3, NDP 1.

Not quite a sweep, but even better, as he can now pretend there is an Official Opposition.
And while recent polls are suggesting today's Ontario election may give Dalton McGuinty's Liberals a second straight majority, there is simply no comparison between the two provincial votes apart from cool weather and a bit of drizzle.

Williams's successful campaign had several parts – everything from a piece of the off-shore oil action to a $1,000 “baby bonus” to pump up the on-shore population – but it really boiled down to one note he sounded again and again.

“Pride.”

“If I've accomplished anything here,” he told this paper when he dropped the writ, “I just think it's that. Pride in Newfoundland and Labrador – and that's what it's really all about.”
Williams entered every hall and constituency office to the same thundering election song – Proud, Strong, Determined – and would often even sing along:

“We have lived through troubled times for centuries and more,
“We can see the problems coming miles before they hit the shore,
“Now when others take and condescend we will wink and nod no more.”

Fists pumping like a fevered revolutionary, he would take up the chorus:

“We know what we're fighting for,
“We believe in what we're fighting for,
“We love what we're fighting for –
“Newfoundland and Labrador.”

What this pride was all about was a new sense that the most “have not” of provinces is heading, perhaps as soon as the next two years, toward becoming a rare “have” province in an equalization program that created a pecking order by trying to prevent one.

Newfoundlanders have let it be known they are done with “Newfie” jokes, even the self-deprecating ones, done with being patronized, done with being taken for granted – and done, in particular, with being painted as part of, as Stephen Harper so stingingly put it, “a culture of defeat.”

“They felt like they were being treated like second-class citizens,” Williams said. “That whole acknowledgment and recognition – put our heads up and stick our chests out.”

And Williams, obviously, led by example – at times much to the chagrin of the rest of Canada, and, in particular, the two prime ministers of his time, Paul Martin and Harper.

“Right now, for all intents and purposes,” Ryan Cleary, editor of the fiercely nationalistic newspaper The Independent, was saying yesterday, “Danny Williams is Newfoundland pride personified.

“It's as if all our pride and hope has been channelled into one champion. … Danny Williams is our best hope right now. That's the simple fact of it.”

In many ways, the breadth of Williams's victory was a surprise even to those who predicted majority. Liberal Leader Gerry Reid ran his entire campaign on the notion that only he could speak for rural Newfoundlanders. Reid pushed for the fisheries and pushed for returning population to places where the “emptying out” is creating ghost communities. And rural Newfoundland responded by … voting for Williams. In the end, Reid lost his own seat in a cliffhanger.

It is impossible to imagine such an election in Ontario.

If Newfoundland and Labrador was all about “pride,” Ontario seemed more, at times, about “shame.” Premier Dalton McGuinty was portrayed as a liar; the opposition, Conservative Leader John Tory, made of himself a bumbler, a man who might well have become premier today but for a startling inability to read the province he thought he could lead.

To Tory's credit, however, he did have certain flashes of insight, and one occurred late in September when he came calling on The Globe and Mail's editorial board.

He talked about his sense “that we're seeing a kind of diminished Ontario.”

He spoke of once-so-powerful Ontario having “fallen out of our leadership role in Canada.”
This, to no surprise, he laid at the doorstep of McGuinty. But no matter how it has happened, if in fact it has happened, it certainly felt these past weeks as if this has come to pass.

“I think,” said Tory, “we became kind of just another supplicant instead of being the leader in trying to forge new arrangements in the country.”

An intriguing observation, and never so striking as in a week when we see one poor province so genuinely excited by its future, while one rich province seems strangely alarmed by its.