Cabinet Minister Defends Campaigning Against Manning

One of the interesting things about having your own blog is that you can record a piece of history relating to the country, world and one's own province. As it stands right now, there appears to be a great deal of support for the Premier's Anything but Conservative campaign. A CBC news story yesterday received over 240 comments on a story about this, and Peter MacKay's visit to the province. By far most of the comments were very anti-MacKay, and pro "campaign". Some were against the Premier's campaign.

Also happening yesterday, three NL Government Cabinet Ministers were reported to have been campaigning against Fabian Manning in his riding of Avalon, specifically in the Bay Robert's area. Trevor Taylor, Minister of several portfolios, has made no apologies for doing this. (see VOCM again)

Understandably people were and are still pissed at Stephen Harper for reneging on his promise of excluding non-renewable resources from the equalization formula, which would have put $10 billion or so into NL's coffers in years to come. This blogger was also very ticked at Harper for doing this. It was a huge disappointment.
It will affect peoples' voting this time. For many others, it won't. After all, we are all individuals and can use our own best judgement to choose the best candidate we personally view as being the most attractive choice, without being reminded daily about who not to vote for.

Today in the local daily paper, Premier Williams mentioned that he "works 24/7, and puts 90% of his time on Newfoundland and Labrador domestic affairs." I do feel that he is sincere about this, and does work hard. I also commend him for working for the province and not taking his salary. As mentioned in a previous post, he is a bright, talented, capable and successful person. However, I would rather the province was not obsessing with it's anti-Harper and anti-Manning campaign. It takes people to run this campaign, but Cabinet Ministers now? If there was still a $10 billion goose egg as a result of a successful anti-Harper campaign, things would be different. But it is not the case, and it is unclear what the reward for the province really is.

I do think we have an extremely capable Premier, a man that can motivate citizens of the province to achieve to their highest potential. Certainly he is an example of this, and he can offer much to motivate people to build Newfoundland and Labrador.

While I didn't mind being reminded about Harper's broken promise, I respectfully disagree with a full out campaign to further cool our province's relations with the federal government. The preference here is for our MHAs and Cabinet Ministers to devote 100% of their work time strictly to matters that are immediate and essential to the province.

Here is an interpretative summary of how some commenters from yesterday's CBC story felt about the ABC campaign:

I guess all the work is done on matters of justice, trade and rural development, fisheries, and intergovernmental affairs. It's nice to know that with all that time on their hands they have willingly helped out the Danny
ABC campaign against enemies Fabian Manning and Stephen Harper. That should really help the province. It's also good to see that there are so many volunteers working on the ABC campaign. There must be, surely public servants who are hired to run provincial affairs would not have "extra-curricular" duties piled on them. Someone is moving the campaign forward. What a good use of time, money and resources. And no sir, this is not a personal grudge Danny has against Harper or Manning, this will benefit the province - no need for me to explain why, you just know it. Then once we've shown our hate towards Harper, the Conservatives and Manning, Tom Hedderson, can productively carry on his role as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, and really get things done, ever more efficiently.