Down go the flags, down go the morals

While I'm still wasting time, I'd like to put in a good word for Danny Williams. I'm hardly the biggest fan of the provinces, but in my opinion, New Found Land these days has a lot more to complain about than the perpetually whining Alberta Aliens or the perpetually-outraged Québec nationalists, particularly re treatment at the hands of Paul Martin over oil and gas revenues.

From none of the large provinces would the federal government demand fiscal conditions for releasing the money, Alberta non plus. If it is true that the feds are demanding this, it means that they are treating Newfoundland like an untrustworthy, idiot stepchild. To do this, and yet defeat the purpose of the agreement by reneging on the equalization payments issue, is really pretty stinky. (The purpose of the agreement being that they need to raise the Newfoundland standard of living by injecting more revenues, through oil!)

So lowering the flag is kind of childish. Since we hardly ever pay attention to Newfoundland, we'd probably never have heard of it without the stunt. So it "lost them support" in the rest of the country. Yeah. This, from people who never otherwise supported or opposed it. They didn't know. And, full disclosure, until this stunt, neither did I.