Democrat to demagogue

More than a week ago, now, the petty little man who passes for a Premier blurted out the following in the priveleged space of the House of Assembly:

PREMIER WILLIAMS: What we probably could have predicted but we would have thought hopefully would not have happened is that Quebec and the Quebec judges and the Quebec courts would have shafted us once again and that is exactly what is happening, every single decision that we have had out of that Province in the last month. That Régie decision as I said in the House was absolutely shameful. Quebec lovers, if we could only keep the Quebec lovers quiet, Mr. Speaker, it would be nice.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Excusez- moi. I am going to go back there.

[…]

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, we are in the process and we are in the process of course of estimating exactly what those liabilities are. As I indicated in a previous question, from Mademoiselle, the Leader of the Opposition, 75 per cent to 80 per cent of this cost will actually be related to non-expropriated assets, those assets would actually be Buchans which is the lion’s share of all environmental liabilities, Botwood and also the Stephenville mill which is long past but of course obviously which we are going to end up with at the end of the day because they have moved those assets over to a shell company in order to avoid liability

In case you were labouring under the mistaken belief that there has been any social progress in Newfoundland since the 1940s, here's a little reality-check, as originally published anonymously in the original Independent on April 5, 1948:

We want no French Canadians, and what we have we'll hold
It has given us a living, and it's something more than gold;
I thought the French Shore question was settled years ago,
But like the cat that has nine lives it lives in Schemer Joe.

There'd be Frenchmen in their Galleons, and Frenchmen in their Sloops,
There'd be Frenchmen in their Batteaus, all wearing wooden boots;
They'd be full of false politeness, as they'd take our choicest berths,
They'd fly their flag the Fleur de Lis, oh, Mother, that's what hurts.

The Winsors, and the Barbours, the Blackwoods and the Keans,
The Sampsons and the Murphys, the Roberts's and Paynes,
Will all turn over in their graves, if Smallwood wins the day,
Cape Ann's will be forbidden - and we'll wear a French beret.

We're a Scotch and English mixture, and the fighting Irish breeds
We live in peace and harmony, and help each other's needs
We like our Brewis and Flippers, and a scattered time a Turr,
And we don't want any Frenchmen, with their talk of Mal de mer.

There was a time, less than a decade ago, when Danny Williams honestly appealed to the better angels of the public whose votes he was still seeking on his way to the Eighth Floor.

That day is long gone.

And this, this pathetic, disgusting appeal to bigotry and prejudice — this is what's left. It's all that's left.

It's hard to decide what's worse.

The fact that he now spouts the vile, demagogic bilge that he does.

Or the fact that, with very few exceptions, those people, inside the legislature and out, who should stand up to it, challenge it, and condemn it for what it is, time and again fail to do so.