Time warp

For a whole host of reasons, Shaun Polczer’s interview with Danny Williams, in yesterday’s Calgary Herald, is a fascinating document.

Here’s Reason #1:

Q: You've been characterized in the press as Hugo Chavez of the North — how did that come about?

A: That was spun by the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) because it served their purposes. I mean, he (Stephen Harper) came in here last year at a critical point in these negotiations — they had just fallen apart — and basically gave the province no support.

And I'm just saying to the guy, who happens to be the head of my country, "Give us a little support here." And he shuts me down completely. And the Hugo Chavez line starts to spin out.

But I don't mind that. We're not Hugo Chavez around here. We don't own the television stations. I'm just interested in a bigger piece of the oil.

Fascinating. Just fascinating.

Because, you see, the Canadian Press reported on April 11, 2006:

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams will skip a meeting with his fellow premiers Wednesday to lobby Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the legal right to expropriate any oil field that remains undeveloped for too long, the Globe and Mail reports.

Williams said he is looking to implement "fallow-field" legislation by the end of this year - or even by June - but that any such move will need to be done in conjunction with the federal government due to their joint regulation of the offshore industry.

Such a law would allow the province to force the sale of any oil discovery that remained unexploited for 20 or 25 years, Williams told the Globe in Calgary. The longer deadline would embrace Exxon Mobil Corp.'s stake in the Hebron heavy-oil field, discovered between 1980 and 1981.

The legislation has yet to be written, but its purpose in the province's increasingly heated showdown with the oil industry is clear: To force Exxon and the other Hebron partners to develop the project soon, and on Newfoundland's terms.

Harper is travelling to Newfoundland to deliver a lunchtime speech Wednesday at the St. John's Board of Trade.

The next day, which would be April 12, 2006, if you’re paying attention, Alison Auld, again for CP, reported:

Danny Williams might have to go it alone in his fight to acquire idle oilfields after Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a decidedly cool response to the Newfoundland premier's proposal to secure offshore developments.

Harper, in this port city Wednesday to promote his Accountability Act, said a dispute between the province and the partners in the stalled Hebron heavy oilfield should be resolved through negotiations, not by dragging the federal government into it.

"We view this as a commercial dispute between two parties," he told reporters after a board of trade luncheon.

…

Williams, who held a separate news conference immediately after Harper's, downplayed Ottawa's involvement in the scheme. He suggested it as a last resort that could hopefully be avoided if the parties get back to the table and agree on a resolution.

"Basically, what we're saying here is that when all other avenues have been exhausted, if that is the only alternative, then we would be making a direct approach to the federal government," said Williams, who opted to miss the premiers' meeting in Montreal to stay home and meet with Harper.

On April 9 – that’s two days before Harper arrived in Newfoundland – Rob Antle reported for The Telegram:

Premier Danny Williams is rejecting criticism in the national media that his hardline stand on the Hebron-Ben Nevis development is sending the wrong message to the business community.

"I'm delighted we're getting that reaction from the national press," Williams told The Telegram in an interview Friday.

And on April 5 – another four days prior – Danny said in an interview with Claudia Cattaneo and Jon Harding of the Financial Post:

Q Do you feel it's unfair to compare you to Hugo Chavez?

A Well, I suppose I'd rather be compared to Hugo Boss! But if it's Hugo Chavez you're going to compare me to, yes, I think that's very unfair. From my understanding from President Chavez, he's looking for 60% ownership from the oil industry. We're nowhere close to that. We're less than 10% of that.

And what was that “criticism in the national media” that so “delighted” Danny for the local audience, because it gave him some more Canadians to bash; and which he thought was “unfair” for the national audience, because it allowed him to cast himself, yet again, as the victim?

Why, it was the column by Terence Corcoran in the Financial Post, on April 4, 2006, fully a week before Harper set foot in Dannyland, in which he (in)famously wrote:

Newfoundland, under the leadership of Hugo Williams, yesterday joined Russia and Venezuela at the forefront of grandstanding potentates facing off against the global oil industry. The official announcement from Chevron said it and three partners — Exxon, Petro-Canada and Norsk — had decided to "suspend negotiations" with the government of Newfoundland over the Hebron offshore oil project.

Welcome to the Dannyverse, where things like facts, reality, and chronological order can be ignored wherever they are inconvenient, and where everyone who doesn’t already love Danny is out to get him.

Somewhere in the recesses of Danny’s mind, he really does believe that the PMO, despite the notoriously acrimonious relationship they have had with the press, especially early in 2006, are not only able to tell journalists what to write, they are able to go back in time and do so.