Lessons learned

It's hard not to escape the conclusion that the entire purpose of Chairman Dan's late junket to Scandinavia was to make this comparison:

The Premier commented that obviously the main difference in Norway and Newfoundland and Labrador is that Norway is a country

Very good, Chairman. Any grade-school student could have saved you, Tom Rideout, and the collective taxpayer the airfare and hotel bills, and told you exactly the same thing.

But then, Chairman wouldn't be able to come home and subtly ratched up the not just the nationalist, but increasingly not-so-covertly separatist rhetoric that he's been slowly ratcheting up since April 2001.

One could just as easily justify a trip to Greenland, Nunavut, the NWT, and Yukon, and compare those regions to Labrador, another northern resource hinterland, and discover the obvious truth that Greenland has "Home Rule", and the three Canadian jurisdictions are semi-autonomous territories.

But what, other than ratcheting up Labrador separatist rhetoric, would discovering that self-evident grade-school truth accomplish?

Perhaps Chairman should also visit Alaska, which, despite being part of a federation, and a federation in which the federal government has jurisidiction over fisheries to boot, ain't doing too bad.

And perhaps along the way he can stop in and see what lessons Yukon might have for Labrador.

Next stop, with winter not that far around the corner, is probably to see what lessons that "other island", or half-island, the Dominican Republic, has to offer the Republic of Newfoundland.