Newfoundland Nationalism and Relations with Ottawa and Quebec

I think it’s kind of funny how we talk about election campaigns while they’re in progress. Between the polling and the poll aggregators, there’s often a feeling of inevitability to the result.

But it also makes those times when the result is unexpected, when the actual will of the voters turns out to be very different from what the polls and the pundits predicted, to stand out in stark relief.

We got one of those last week.

The polls that were conducted in Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial election campaign showed that the incumbent Liberals were set to handily win another majority, which would have been their fourth victory in a row. The only question seemed to be how big their victory would be.

But it was not to be.

The Progressive Conservatives, led by the mild-mannered Tony Wakeham, prevailed, rendering John Hogan a half-year premier.

But really, all of this has just been a capper to an incredibly strange year in Newfoundland and Labrador politics.

It started when Premier Andrew Furey announced that he and Quebec premier François Legault had created a framework for a new deal around Churchill Falls. Since 1969, Newfoundland and Labrador has provided unbelievably cheap energy to Quebec from Churchill Falls. The lopsided arrangement has been a thorn-in-the-side for the province ever since.

We talked about this all in-depth earlier this year in an episode about Churchill Falls.

But not long after announcing this new deal, Furey resigned. With no explanation.

The PC’s election victory has put the Churchill Falls deal, which was the centrepiece of the Liberal campaign, into question.

So what does all of this mean for Newfoundland and Labrador, for Churchill Falls and for the country during a testy time for Confederation?

I decided to call up friend of The Hatchet Ed Hollett, one of the keenest political observers on the Rock, to talk about it all.

Featured in this episode: Edward Hollett (Bond Papers)

To learn more

The Hundred Years' War between Newfoundland and Quebec from The Hatchet

"Easy grift and hard graft" by Edward Hollet in Bond Papers

"Red Team. Blue Team." by Edward Hollet in Bond Papers

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Music: I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: J Lang, Morusque

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