Crack Talk With Bill Rowe

If any additional proof was needed of why Bill Rowe should be frog-marched off the air, Thursday’s version of Backtalk provided it.

First there was a call from regular Jim Halley, complaining that the 20-km road to Cape Race is unpaved. Oh, woe. Guess what, Jim? There’s a highway over fifty times as long that’s in the same situation. Sure enough, someone from Labrador, the location of that highway, called in to point that out. Here’s the exchange between Lewis from Labrador City and Bill Rowe:

LEWIS: I’m referring to the call I just heard from Jim Halley about the road to Cape Race not paved. […] I wonder how would he feel if he was living in Labrador when he had no roads at all paved. We have to drive 800 kilometres to go to the coast. I wonder how would he feel about that?

BILL ROWE: Yeah, well is that, is it an either or situation, Lewis? I mean, I don’t see the two in competition with each other, do you?

LEWIS: Well he’s talking about the, I mean a nice place at Cape Race, a tourist attraction and all this. But Labrador I think got tourist attractions too. And I don’t understand why the people in Newfoundland is complaining about a road ten or twelve miles long and don’t care about the people in Labrador. The government don’t seem to care as long as we’re here making the money to keep the government going.

BILL ROWE: Lewis, do you ever hear the, did anyone ever tell you that you whine an awful lot? That there’s an awful lot of whining going on when it comes to a situation in Labrador?

Wow. It’s amazing how the same type of discourse, on the same type of issue, is “whining” when it comes from Labrador. But when it comes from Newfoundland, and from the mouth of Bill Rowe or Chairman Dan, it’s “national liberation” or something.

And it gets worse. Bill Rowe shows his propensity to shill for Glorious Leader. A giant banner with some sovietesque slogan, “Danny Williams Father of the Nation Will Liberate Labrador From Isolation” or some such, could not be more, well, sovietesque than what Bill Rowe says next:

BILL ROWE: I mean, you’re making progress in Labrador as a result of your efforts and the efforts of political figures and municipal leaders and town people generally. I mean, you are making progress are you, or are you not?[…] isn’t that, there’s going to be a hard top put on that, isn’t there, over the next reasonable amount of time.

LEWIS: Well, there was supposed to be, two years ago they put a 15 kilometres or seven or eight on each side from between here and Goose Bay and that’s two years later and we haven’t heard nothing since. I mean, we’ve been hearing things, but there hasn’t been nothing done.

BILL ROWE: Yeah. I mean, I don’t see this, I’ll tell you straight, I don’t see this kind of either or situation. I mean, Cape Race is a historical point down there and Jim Halley’s and mine and a lot of other people’s idea would be that there should be adequate access to this historical site which is part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I mean, there should be and as a, not only a tourist attraction, but as a, as something we all as citizens of this province should be proud of. But the same argument applies to infrastructure in Labrador, too. I mean, it’s not either or, it’s both; both should be done. Isn’t that correct?

LEWIS: Well, yes, but a person only got to drive twenty kilometres to go see a historical site, well when another person got to drive 800 kilometres just to go to the coast, I mean, it’s quite a difference, isn’t it?

BILL ROWE: Yeah, but, okay, obviously what I’m trying to say here is not getting through to you, Lewis, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. Not that I don’t welcome your point of view, but I, what I don’t understand, I don’t understand your point of view, that’s my problem. It’s not, I mean, paving the road to Cape Race is not going to stop is it? I mean, is this your argument; that paving the road or fixing up the road to Cape Race is somehow going to stop development in Labrador? Is that what you’re saying?

LEWIS: No, I, I don’t think so, but I think Labrador should be considered first. I mean, Labrador, I mean, is a cow, give it the milk right here and now and it seems like the Newfoundland government is milking the cow for the province of Newfoundland, for the island of Newfoundland.

BILL ROWE: Where do you get that idea, that Labrador is the milk cow for all the rest of the province?

LEWIS: I mean, they’re getting all the benefits and we’re reaping all the plums.

BILL ROWE: Yeah, I’d like to see a cost benefit analysis on that argument you’re making there. It’d be very interesting, Lewis.

Where does Lewis get that idea, Bill? Maybe from Chairman Dan himself!

“It’s high time that Labradorians, instead of feeling like someone else’s treasure trove, started feeling like an integral part of our province. We cannot expect fair treatment from Ottawa if we don’t practise what we preach.”

That was what Chairman said on that night in April 2001 he became The Party’s Leader.

Then Comrade Rowe opens up an invite:

BILL ROWE: Anyone who’s got a point of view on anything on that exchange between myself and Lewis, please, by all means, give us a call on it. We, this idea that there’s somehow we should be competing against each other in parts of our province of Newfoundland and Labrador is, to me it’s, and sort of complain about somebody getting something, I don’t hold with that, although I could be hopelessly wrong and out to lunch. If so, don’t hesitate to tell me.

Before you know it, George from Happy Valley-Goose Bay takes him up on it:

GEORGE: I’d just like to refer back to the conversation you had with, I guess, the gentleman from Lab West […] I’m actually appalled that you would even think and make the comment about whining. I mean, I’ve listened to your show now on a number, numerous occasions, both your show in the afternoons, mornings, evenings. When people get on and complain about the ferry service from Bell Island. When they get on and complain about the Northern Peninsula Highway. When they get on and complain about rocks on the road, bad bridges, nobody’s whining. When somebody gets on from Labrador and complains about the lousy transportation system that we have here, we’re whining. I think the biggest problem with it is, is there’s a mindset and, obviously, you’re a seasoned politician as well, you’ve been there, you’ve done this, you’ve done that. That’s the mindset that we have to battle. All we’re asking for, I think, up here, Mr. Rowe, is to come up to a reasonable parity with the province.

Heaven forbid in a call-in talk show that a caller-in should be able to, you know, talk:

BILL ROWE: I think the whining remark, George, if I could just interject.

GEORGE: Sure.

BILL ROWE: You can have, you know, ample time to make your point.

GEORGE: Yeah.

BILL ROWE: The whining remark had to do not with demands or requests or statements as to what Labrador needs. The whining remark had to do with the point made about Cape Race needing-

GEORGE: But, Mr. Rowe-

BILL ROWE: -needing-

GEORGE: -it’s directly, it’s directly related.

BILL ROWE: -needing- Can I speak?

GEORGE: Yes, go ahead, sir.

BILL ROWE: Or do you want to say it? If you want to talk, George, go ahead and then we’ll go to the other caller.

GEORGE: Make your point, sir.

BILL ROWE: Can I?

GEORGE: Yes, sir.

Comrade Rowe, perhaps now cognizant of the implications of what he had said – or maybe not – tries to explain himself:

BILL ROWE: Well, thank you, George. I appreciate that. My whining remark had to do with the comparison between the Labrador Highway and the historical site in Cape Race and the need to get access to that. And what I found, and still find, hard to take is that there’s any competition between the two concepts. I mean, everyone supports, certainly I do, the idea of a good, hardtop road right across Labrador. I mean, you know, but the idea that somehow, trying to get an access to Cape Race undermines that concept, to my mind, does not hold water.

But caller George will have none of it:

GEORGE: And, and I appreciate, I appreciate your opinion. But the problem with it is it becomes the priority. Because we will hear Ministers turn around and say that we only have so much money to do something. So, right off the bat, you look at your, your road that you want down in Cape Race, and you look at the priorities from the Labrador transportation system – the whole, right from coast to coast up here. And, all of a sudden, it gets back burner because Cape Race has to, because what you just mentioned, a historical site.

BILL ROWE: You believe that?

GEORGE: And it’s a priority because we are making progress in Labrador. How many times, sir, have you gone from St. John’s to Gander and had to pack extra tires, had to pack maybe some food in the wintertime, some extra clothes, maybe a tent, axe to cut wood, how, you know, that’s the problem that we’re here. We don’t even have a, a, and it’s effective, but it’s not all vehicles can use that road, I don’t think, in an effective manner. But the problem with it is, is that we always seem to be getting, I always seem to hear and, as a former municipal politician here, that’s the thing. It’s priorities. And, yes, we’re given some pittance and we’re, we’re doing this and we’re doing that. The next time you put the double lane, you hardtop it with the chip seal. And, I mean, that’s the thing. All I think that people want up here is to come up to a level that’s acceptable. And then, if everybody else paves every single part of, every other part of the province, fine and dandy. But I think all we want is...

George continues expounding on his theme, to which Comrade Rowe comes back with a highly unusual, and dangerous, counterpoint:

GEORGE: I mean, when someone’s got to travel from Lab City to a doctor’s appointment, it takes them seven and a half hours to travel to, five hundred kilometres, over a dirt road. In this day and age, and then we’re talking about a tourist attraction. I mean, to me, there has to be something. And I’m not using Cape Race, but it could be anything. There has to be some kind of parity. And I don’t think the majority of people up here feel that there is.

BILL ROWE: All right. Now, George, let me, does the difference in population, does that figure into, if you have a population of five hundred thousand on an island and twenty-seven thousand, say, a large, three or four times large territory, does that figure at all in the spending priority of a government?

And again:

BILL ROWE: Compared to what you’re trying to achieve in Labrador, and I was asking the question, if that’s permissible, the question is does the population of five hundred thousand as against twenty-seven thousand, does that have any bearing, in your mind, on the spending priorities of the government?

GEORGE: It probably does. But, at the same time, I think that basic needs, which is basic transportation, etcetera, etcetera, should be at a certain level whereby then those other items that you’re talking about, like the road to Cape Race or anywhere else that, that are nice to haves, can be met.

Perhaps Bill Rowe has never bothered to crunch the numbers, but Labrador has 6% of the province’s population. The province has less than 2% of Canada’s population. If someone “up in Canada” were to make that same argument – that Newfoundland only has 2% of the population, that our priorities have to be up in Ontario and Quebec and B.C. where most of the people live, it’s a very safe bet what Comrade Rowe’s reaction would be.

Then, just minutes after having pumped up all the amazing things that Chairman Dan’s government is supposedly doing for Labrador, Rowe admits he doesn’t have the first clue what he’s talking about when it comes to Labrador transportation issues:

BILL ROWE: Well, I mean, I understand that point of view and I think I agree with it. I mean, I don’t see, I can’t see how anyone can disagree that you need basic priorities met. What is the status now of the Trans Labrador Highway? What is the, what is the status of it in terms of the schedule, planning, of the construction of that basic piece of infrastructure? What’s the situation?

GEORGE: I’m not totally sure. I did believe, you know, we had been told that there would be studies on, or future studies, or results released on studies, about the, the paving. I think they’re waiting from a federal government perspective to get some kind of buy-in on the commitment that they, promises, made et cetera. I don’t know.
BILL ROWE: I thought, you see, I thought it was a done deal in terms of the money being available and the go-ahead given and all that kind of thing. So, you don’t know and I, obviously, am not clear about it, so, anyone listening to us who could tell us the answer to that, including the Minister of Transportation. I would certainly welcome that information. Because I thought, I thought that the basic transportation needs of Labrador he now been agreed to by the government – provincial and federal – and that it was a go-ahead situation. I’d be very surprised to hear that it’s not, George, to tell you the truth, because I thought it was.

GEORGE: And, Mr. Rowe, it may have well been. I’ve been gone out of town for a month of so. But, like I say, I mean, when I hear other people talking about the transportation systems that word whining has never come up. But when somebody gets on complaining about it, our road et cetera, and it’s not only just yourself, there have been other people made the same comments. And other callers have made the same comments about the whining. But it’s not a whining because it’s just a want and a desire to come up with some basic level of service that’s acceptable.

BILL ROWE: And, by all means, fight for it. Continue on.

GEORGE: Absolutely.

BILL ROWE: And thank you for your call, George. And if you find out the question I asked, give us a call back.

Didn't Bill already know the answer? After all, "I mean, you are making progress are you, or are you not?[…] isn’t that, there’s going to be a hard top put on that, isn’t there, over the next reasonable amount of time."

Bill Rowe continually shows a willingness to shill for The Williams Administration (as the provincial government is now officially called, apparently), a venemous and frankly abusive conduct towards callers who don’t toe the line in Danny Williams’ Newfoundland, and a laxity with annoying things like facts. Any or all of these should, in a just universe, see The Daily Two-Hour Separatist Hate With Bill Rowe replaced with something listenable and socially productive.

Even the syndicated John Tesh Soporific would be a step up for Voice Of the Conservative Mouthpiece.

And just remember: Bill Rowe, the misinformed, the belligerent, the obnoxious; Bill Rowe, who accepts no dissent, will not hear criticism of Danny Williams, even if it means sticking his thumbs in his ears; Bill Rowe, who wears his antipathy to Labrador like a badge; this Bill Rowe was once Danny’s choice to represent Newfoundland and Labrador in Ottawa.