Striving Against Opposition

Danny Willians - Not about to let the truth get in the way of a good argument

Cudos to the Canadian Press for this story.

I've spent the last week or so watching Danny Williams perform his song and dance over equalization. Essentially Williams is angry because somehow, in some vague manner that he really can't describe in any detail - Newfoundland got the shaft. How you might ask? Well Stephen Harper broke his commitment, he went back on his word. Now the natural question is what was the consequences of this? Danny Williams isn't saying - but surely it must be DIRE, given that Williams has felt the need to run ads in newspapers across the country and vent bile and bitterness on national television right?

"Newfoundland and Labrador will end up getting $5.6 billion more under the federal government's proposed equalization formula than under the status quo, says a Memorial University professor.

In the first attempt at crunching the numbers, Memorial University economist Wade Locke - one of the province's leading experts on offshore revenue deals - has found that if Newfoundland were to stick with the Atlantic Accord and the old equalization formula until 2020, it would receive $18.5 billion in combined revenues.

But if the province follows an optimal strategy - where it would leave the accord in 2009 and opt into a formula where a fiscal cap is implemented and 50 per cent of non-renewable natural resource revenues are included - it would receive $24.1 billion over that same period, Locke said".

Yes, damn that rascally Harper - increasing your equalization payments to the tune of 5.6 billion additional dollars. If your looking for sympathy from the rest of Canada Premier Williams, that's the tune of the world's smallest violin playing.

posted by Chris @ 4/05/2007 12:25:00 a.m.