13 Degrees of Separation, II

Sayeth DW: "It should have been a legitimate celebration of coming out of the 'have not' status and being a net contributor to Canada. We're looking at that to be a very positive thing — and then Canada just struck us over the head."

But if NL is part of Canada and DW is a proud Canadian, DW seems to be saying that he whacked himself over the head.

If it's not going to be a legitimate celebration of coming out of the have-not closet, DW seems to be saying that it's going to be an illegitimate celebration of coming out of the separatist closet.

In just a couple of days of media-scumming and interview-giving (amazing media availability for such a busy hero), DW has managed the following serial conflations:

1) DW with NL

2) NL with Atlantic Canada

3) DW's interests with those of everyone else in the country

4) ABC games with election of minority federal government

5) Harpoid with the Feds

6) The Feds with Canada

7) Canada with Have/Have Not status

8) Have status with anniversary of Confederation

9) Patriotism with separatism

10) Hockey with politics

11) Politics with war

12) War with governing

13) Governing with ruling.


So let's enter Danworld, for just a minute. Let's assume that he's right: his glorious ABC campaign, which he has referred to publicly as a "war," did indeed result in Harpoid being denied a majority. A big if.If, keep with me here, if this were indeed true, then how could he be so easily ambushed by Harpoid? Surely the smartest leader and best elbow-giver would know (as He himself admitted) that he would be getting an elbow back in retaliation. Surely the Man in the Blue Line cab would have spread around enough war-chest money to build an effective intelligence network. Surely Dangovt would have had it all figured out in the master Danplan.

The only excuse DW has for being out-maneouvered is that Harpoid is not playing by the (DW-designed) rules because Harpoid delivered a sledgehammer rather than an elbow. So a mid-range fiscal hit of, say, $500 million would have been within the boundaries of the hockey-game world that DW operates. If we're going to take Dantalk seriously, then, in Danworld, Canada boils down to a game of fiscal hockey: DW gets to use every weapon imaginable, from hauling down the country's flag to calling successive PM's every name in the dictionary, including coward and liar, in order to elbow his way to the best deal. That's the way His game is played, as he's said publicly many, many times.

Fiscal "status" is, in this worldview, the sum total of Canada. That's it. Get sledgehammered fiscally (lose the political game, in other words) and it's all over, baby. Somehow, though, I suspect DW won't have the guts to haul down the Canadian flag this time, while Newfoundlanders are serving and dying under that flag in Afghanistan. Better this time to cook up an April Fools bonfire. Better this time to ramp up the Canadian patriotism as a pretext for whipping up the wingnuts.

And He'll need every last one of those wingnuts because, despite their predominance on the web and VOCM, they are, at best, a tenth of the provincial electorate. As Dangovt knows very well, if given the chance to vote in a referendum, the vast majority of people in NL would vote to remain in Canada.