Now, don't take this literally

In response to a question about Ottawa taxi chits, of all things, Himself gets up and lobs this:

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, now that the hon. member opposite has raised it let’s talk about the Abitibi exercise and let’s talk about what we have done with regard to Abitibi. The hon. member opposite knows, he is a lawyer, he is trained, he knows what the consequences would have been if we, in fact, had not acted on the Abitibi file. If, in fact, we had stood back and had not stepped in when we did and had not expropriated the property one of two things would happened, either the property would have been sold and the assets would have gone outside the Province, and the people of the Province would have no say or no interest, or otherwise they would have entered into a receivership, or a bankruptcy, or a consumer protection. At that point as well, the assets of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, our timber, our land, our water and our infrastructure would have been gone.

Of course, he didn't mean this in the literal sense of "gone", as in "gone to Sarasota", but rather in some highly technical legal sense of the word "gone" which only awesome lawyers, businessmen, and Rhodes Scholars know.