Newfoundlanders call newcomers to the province Come From Aways (or CFAs). I’ve been a CFA now for about six months since arriving here for Grad school from Alberta. Before getting here I’d heard in the news of premier Danny Williams’ various attacks on the Harper government for this affront or that, and I’d seen enough CBC television to have a picture of St. John’s and its colourful row houses (painted for years with lead paint which is now wrecking havoc with local soil quality) perched on jagged rocks. It wasn’t much of an impression sure, but about as good of one as one might hope spending the past 25 years between Alberta, Quebec and abroad–all places where Newfoundland and Labrador is the last thing on anyone’s mind (with the exception of importing Newfoundlanders for work in the Alberta Oil Patch, but that awareness doesn’t stem from any sensitivity to Newfoundland and Labrador, it is merely a resource worth exploiting).

Through six months as a CFA I’ve gotten a taste of the political climate in Newfoundland and Labrador (or St. John’s anyhow). A taste seasoned by Danny WIlliams’ overwhelming popularity , his ABC (Anything But Conservative) campaign in the last federal election, his convincing/coercing the ABC MPs elected to vote against the Conservative’s budget , and his effectively booting pulp and paper giant AbitibiBowater out of the province completely when they closed a plant in Newfoundland , just to name a few.

This is a Danny Williams province. In a lot of ways it has the familiar smack of Ralph Klein’s Alberta. But whereas Ralph was an affable Everyman-cum- rodeo clown, who was more engaged in drinking too much, saying the wrong thing to the right crowd, and working up the populists’ blood. Danny appears to be a far more shrewd politician. Ralph was a success much like how George W. Bush was a success. They said the right things to the right people and portrayed an affable enough persona that voting for a drinking buddy didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Ralph would suspend the legislature to go fishing, have a pub crawl thrown in his honour, drunkenly break into homeless shelters to accost the homeless in the middle of the night, make an international incident out of a BBQ, copy his undergraduate papers straight from the internet, call migrant workers creeps and bums or campaign and win elections without a platform or a campaign to speak of. At the end of the day, if anything got done, it seemed like a miracle, like a triumph of Klein’s personality, and towards the end of his reign the miracles grew less and less. It is hard to imagine doing less with more than Ralph did with the Golden Goose that is Alberta (Ed Stelmach’s government just tabled legislation to end homelessness in Alberta in 10 years, ambitious by any standard, but night and day compared to Klein). Danny on the other hand is far more of a politician than either of Bush or Klein ever were. You are never left with the impression that he doesn’t have a firm grip on his power. Danny, it seems, never has a hair out of place.

There seems to be a certain Newfoundlander ethic that is fostered in this place, amongst its people, like there seems to be in small town Alberta. This ethic goes hand-in-hand with being a Newfoundlander. As a CFA I might be able to someday act like a Newfoundlander. But I will never be a Newfoundlander. Not that I am not welcomed, Newfoundlanders are among the warmest people I’ve ever come across. But the fact of the matter is that I am a CFA and no amount of effort will change that. In Alberta everyone is a CFA of some sort (Canada is most all CFAs, even Quebec and Newfoundland, technically). I might hold some merit in my home province for being from there, but not much compared to Newfoundland or even Quebec. Places where things like pure laine still count for a lot.

Danny Williams the Rhodes Scholar in his shiny suits and well-coiffed hair is about as far from the average Newfoundlander I had imagined living in a picturesque fishing village on a jagged rocky shoreline. But in a province that declared Danny Cleary Day in honour of it’s first native son to play for a Stanley Cup champion, you needn’t polish an image of a cowboy to pander to the real cowboys. You are, or you aren’t. You needn’t pretend either way. If you can trace your roots back to a particular bay matters more than if you wear a Sou’wester and call everyone buddy or b’y. Ralph had to act out Albertan stereotypes to portray himself as the proto-Albertan, whereas Danny is a Newfoundlander, and no amount of effort will change that.

But the differences between how Ralph and Danny cultivated their popularity are often overlooked by the fact that they are or were the primary provincial shit disturbers in federal politics. Jean Chretien likely still has nightmares about Ralph, while Stephan Harper likely has nightmares about Danny. But the two wildly popular premiers even have done this differently. Whereas Ralph was an awful lot of sabre-rattling, piles of controversial healthcare proposals, outrageous statements, theatrics, buffoonery and whatnot, Danny seems much more willing to put his money where his mouth is. You get the impression that while Ralph might call you and your mother filthy names if you got in a disagreement, Danny would just as soon punch you in the eye. He has deployed any an all weapons in his political repertoire to fight for his province–ranging from removing Canadian flags from provincial buildings, to campaigning actively and effectively against the Harper Conservative’s re-election in his province with the ABC campaign.

Part 2: Newfoundland and Labrador leading the New Canada?

Then, in last weekend’s St. John’s Telegram (March 14, 2009) a letter from Frank Dwyer of Toronto entitled “Re-examining Confederation – for all provinces” appeared, stating, “I think if Danny Williams has the gumption, he should call a referendum that asks the voters of the province to give him a mandate, and hopefully a strong one, to renegotiate the terms of Newfoundland and Labrador’s entry into the federation.” My initial reaction was a dismissive, “yeah right.” But the more I have stewed on it the more I have come to think that perhaps Danny does have the gumption to attempt such a thing. He certainly has the popularity and the beef with Ottawa.

If another province attempted something this brazen it’d either be cause for a national nervous breakdown (i.e. Quebec 1995) or wouldn’t get off the ground. But Newfoundland and Labrador strikes me as the place far enough from the centre of the action and the perceived national mythology to stand-up to Ottawa and demand a better deal for the provinces. Dwyer touches on this major issue, perhaps the major issue, in federal politics, “[w]e need to a leader to pull Ottawa out of its comfort zone and realize that the provinces are grown up now and have a far more demanding job serving their voters than they did in 1867.”

Who in their right mind would want to go into provincial politics? The job of the provinces is far more difficult than the job of the federal government. To begin with, provinces are responsible for the growing cities, where over 80% of Canadians live, and thanks to the taxation structure the resources available to deal with the issues of massive urbanization are severely limited or force you to become beholden to Ottawa. If you have half a mind, you go into federal politics (although you could argue the mind requirements are far less), it is easy street. As we have seen over the past several months, petty bickering, partisanship, proroguing, and other shamefully childish antics pass for politics in Ottawa. You get the perks of public office, without the nuisance of having to do anything. It’s a dream job, no wonder they are fighting like cats and dogs and scheming like con artists for the top spot.

Newfoundland and Labrador is newly a “have” province. While the global economic picture darkens by the day, the effects have been slower to sink in here. Effects are being felt, sure, but with less force and less fast than elsewhere, and even then, this province has a certain resilience that being in a recession for 30 years-or-so brings. While the time might not be right, as the economy is the biggest of all fish to fry, when the economy stabilizes a bit and we are back to the same old games, the provinces will be back to fighting with Ottawa for help actually doing things, and more likely than not Ottawa will choose arm flapping and name calling over helping. And while it is still a small outpost of a province (driving here from Alberta certainly gives you a sense for how far from everywhere St. John’s really is) in many federalists eyes, Newfoundland and Labrador is poised to grow in importance thanks to its oil and the force of political personality of its premier (as opposed to a rodeo clown personality), and in all likelihood Danny will have to continue scrapping for a fair shake for his out-of-the-way province. So why wouldn’t renegotiating Newfoundland and Labrador’s relationship with Ottawa make sense? The province doesn’t want out. The province wants in. And it wants a better deal. A better deal is what all the provinces desperately want, as Dwyer writes in his letter: “Personally, I think the other provinces will follow his lead and seek similar mandates and Williams will truly have found his destiny as the man who forces the sensible and necessary reconfederation of Canada, allowing it to evolve into a more prefect union. That is truly being loyal to one’s country: leadership, strength and vision.”

We’ve seen the mess Ottawa initiated reconfederation talks bring with the flunking of the Meech and Charlottetown accords in the early 1990s. But the fact that no one dares talk about re-opening the constitution since the Quebec referendum in 1995 doesn’t make any of the problems with it disappear. It just makes the problems grow bigger the longer they are put off (sort of like economic disaster, relief of which is likely best not prorogued). Now we have these successful provinces having to fight the borderline farcical federal government, that fluctuates between frustrating and embarrassing, every step of the way. Perhaps real change can come not from Ottawa wanting the provinces to tow the line (a la Meech and Charlottetown), nor from a province that wants out (Quebec), but from a province that wants in. Perhaps Danny Williams is the person for the job of shaking federal politics awake in Canada and reshaping the country so the provinces work better and the federal government work period.