When Finance Minister Siobhan Coady rises in the House on May 31 to deliver the Furey Government’s first Budget, it will be a test not of her resolve, but of the Premier’s determination to give NL the financial leadership that recent Premiers — from Williams to Ball — refused, or were incapable of providing.
This is Premier Furey’s day. The big question is: in place of
leadership will we hear only echoes of NL history’s famed bad boy, Sir Richard
Squires, whose Administration in the 1930s offered to sell Labrador for $110
million?1
Hopefully, the Premier will be remembered for more noble
reasons. Except, Furey has not yet made a
single decision about anything important, so we will have to reserve judgment on
this, and on his courage, too.
Moya Greene, notwithstanding the deficiencies of the PERT Report, essentially told the Premier that we have arrived at, in the vernacular, a ‘come to Jesus’ moment.
