A feeling
came over me like I had received a kick in the guts. It wasn’t just the Budget. That news had been delivered days earlier by the Finance Minister. She was clearly a party-pooper. And Dwight had confirmed he's no Danny.
This was
Monday. I was reading “Get out if you can”, by the Telegram’s Russell Wangersky.
“That would
be my advice” the award winning writer warned, as one might caution a neighbour
of an impending tsunami. “If you’re young, not tied down by investments like a
home you might take a financial bath trying to sell, if you have an education
or a trade that you can use to get a mainland job, just go. Go because we made
this mess and you shouldn’t be forced to pay for it”, his rant continued.
I found
myself gripping the edges of the kitchen island, on which I had unfolded the
broadsheet, holding on tight as a wave of anger struck like an angry sea, making
me nauseous.
It was as if Wangersky was writing a lament for a
place submerged under the weight of
fools, as much as by debt. My god, I thought, he's giving up on Danny!
Wangersky had
kept a watchful eye on Muskrat and budgetary excess, and had frequently warned Willaims and Dunderdale about the path they were on, as the Liberals, the
NDP, and the cheering classes (that’s us) urged them on.That's what writers get paid for, isn't it?
Then, I understood why I was nauseous. I was angry at Wangersky. It's fine to be sarcastic, but he was taking the whole damn thing too far.
Even his final counsel exactly mirrored his initial guidance. What did he say?
“To my kids, to all kids: go. You do not deserve to have to pay
our bills. You shouldn’t have to pay for our mistakes. Come and visit, for
sure. But we made the mess. We should have to clean it up.”
Traitorous bastard,
I thought. What would we want to do that for? Imagine, telling us it's pay time, when we know it's still play time!
He was
telling the Province’s youth to ‘cut and run’, vamoose,a demographic diminishing fast enough as it is.
Surely, as irresponsible as he thought former Premiers; now, he was being foolish,
too.
Had he
forgotten about the promise of “intergenerational equity”?
Didn’t he not know he was undermining Danny’s claim that Muskrat would
be paid for by the young, too?
Where was
the gratitude for ‘the great one’ who had arranged to postpone “rate shock” for
us on the power from Muskrat Falls?
What
business was it of Wangersky’s if young workers had it both ways: “rate shock”
now, and “rate shock” later, too?
Besides,
here was the moral conscience of the commercial giant, Transcontinental Media, their
very own Atlantic Provinces’ disciple, thumbing his nose at our petit bourgeois, an outlier, more suited to the Isle of Green Gables, than among the brave government funded risk takers with the good fortune to be among Danny's privateers.
Didn’t our ads describe a future so bright that capitalism could be even practiced
by bureaucrats?
Hadn’t Danny
guaranteed that future? OH, WHY DID HE HAVE TO LEAVE! God, we’d vote for
him, again, in a Newfoundland minute!!
Perhaps,
this is Wangersky’s problem. The Telegram’s man seems to have forgotten that ours
is a ‘rock’ possessing a conviction unflinching, where to a man and a woman, we
believe the good times will always roll.
That’s why I, for one, always recite
the words: “I BELIEVE IN
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR”. It’s a
bit like a lucky rabbit’s paw; like touching Danny’s shirt tail, or something;
I’m not sure. And, it has a nice ring, too.
For others,
it is an article of faith, one so strong, it was even grabbed,
not taken, by the shop keepers of the Board of Trade!
Does Wangersky
not believe in Newfoundland and Labrador? Does he not know it is a prayer to delicious greed, not some expression of gratuitous patriotism?
More
than anything else, isn't “I believe in Newfoundland and Labrador”, a tribute to
the man of Muskrat; a legacy in his mind, to be sure, but for the rest of us isn't it the perfect trademark
of our deference, an appropriate fusion of submission, denial and illusion? What's wrong with that!
For us, you see, not
Stan, but Dan, is the man!
We like his sense of entitlement; and, he likes ours.
We can borrow
more. We can spend our way out of this.
Why, sure, just a few day ago, in Halifax, didn't Danny say the economy is cyclical and while its in a "valley" now, soon it will "return to the top of the mountain".
We'll go with that.
And, we want
our children, besides.
We don't want to visit them in Fort McMurray. We want their "intergenerational equity”, too.
All Wangersky had to do was tell them to work hard, that it sucks to be young.
It might be tough medicine.
But isn't it time one generation grew up?
.