Thoughtcrime

Jigger Jim Morgan calls into No Names Please on the airwaves of the Ministry of Truth.

He offers up criticism of Danny Williams-Government and several of its ministers and backbenchers, and this, even in the usual muted terms. “I support Danny Williams and the PC government,”, he says, “but…”

NNP goes to commercial break, and comes back afterwards to Shawn, a caller from the Harbour Main area.

Shawn, who is absolutely not a member of the Spontaneous Outrage Organizational Committee (SOOC), is in a fine lather.

“I been a PC all my life. My family supported him. But now he has gone over the line… Tell Jim Morgan to go to sleep. Take a nap. To not go on with this bull he’s going on with.”

All in favour say Bow

Last week the Tellytorialist used the following bit of clever alliterative doggerel to refer to the Minister of Everything:

Perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of the moves was not the appointment of the Carbonear Crackie as Minister of Health.

Cue the Spontaneous Outrage Organizational Committee (SOOC):

Taxpayer from NL writes: ...Carbonear Crackie...wow, this august publication has now stooped to name calling.

JohnL from NL writes: Carbonear Crackie: Stopped reading the article at this point. Total lack of professional behaviour.

Pat from Ontario writes: Carbonear Crackie? If The Telegram needs to resort to name calling, then I guess the government isn't doing so bad. Admit it, it was uncalled for. A newspaper is supposed to provide unbiased information, not attack sitting (or non-sitting...) members of government. It's a newspapers job to provide information in a clear and consice manner, not to make up our minds for us. If he deserves the nickname... then it will be said in the kitchens of the province. It should not be said in the publications.

Bones II from nl writes: Carbonear Crackie? Completely unprofessional presentation, designed to provoke hatred through the use of ridicule.

(This latter, Mr. Bones II, has proven to be an elusive fellow...)

Then, cue the First Shocked and Appalled Division:

The vitriol of Friday's editorial was too much.

Referring to an MHA as a crackie is disrespectful, both to the person and to the people who elected him or her.

Dr. Noel Cadigan
St. John's

It’s a good thing, then, that MHAs and media alike now have the Paul Oram (Huge Difference David) Rule to rely on:

COCHRANE: Doesn’t that cut both ways? Do you read what you and your cabinet colleagues and your caucus colleagues say about other politicians in Hansard? Some of the nastiest comments I’ve seen in my twelve years of politics have happened inside that chamber, where the media is not allowed to go. So you want to talk about a civil tone in politics and how the media is hurting peoples’ families, don’t politicians have to look at how they treat each other, and how they treat their families, too?

ORAM: Huge difference, David, in what happens inside that House and what happens on the airwaves when families can listen to it and watch it, you know, and —

For as far back as there is eHansard, you have examples of MHAs – huge difference, David – calling one another crackies. You have Tories doing it, and in a positive sense even:

MR. SIMMS: You heard the Member for Burin - Placentia West. Like a cracky he is on his feet all the time speaking out on behalf of his constituents.

[March 25, 1991]

And Liberals, in a derogatory one:

MR. MURPHY: Anyway, the Member for Burin - Placentia West can thank himself for what is going on here right now. All he had to do was let this hon. Member make his few comments about the bill and that was the end of it. No no, he has to be cracky over there, "Deputy Dawg," yes, cracky.

[December 10, 1991]

And Tories being derogatory:

MR. [GLENN] TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, can the Member for St. John's South restrain himself. He is like a crackie on a chain.

[November 9, 1992]

And Ed Roberts. (Note how, when Mr. Windsor rises to defend his honour, it is over being told to “shut up”, not over being called a “cracky”; and how Mr. Shelley defends the honour of the cracky):

MR. ROBERTS: Would the cracky from Baie Verte - White Bay - it is kind of late. Mr. Speaker, would the hon. gentleman, the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay
just shut up for a moment?

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. the Minister of Justice is around here and is such a great parliamentarian and has such great knowledge of rules, he must know that it is certainly not proper to tell a member of the House of Assembly to shut up. He should withdraw immediately and apologize.

MR. SHELLEY: It is sickening to hear the likes of that from a House Leader, to call a man a cracky and a fisherman, or whatever. What's wrong with a cracky and a fisherman?

[March 8, 1994]

Here you have all three parties represented on the same day:

MR. HARRIS: I'm offering a bit of reason here to see whether or not the members opposite are even listening to the debate or whether they are doing what they are told - keeping their heads down and mumbling and acting like crackys every now and then - or whether they are actually paying attention and might be able to actually make a decision on this.

[…]

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well I say to the Member for Terra Nova that bulldogs do have some good qualities as well; or they are crackys and without going too far -

[…]

MR. ROBERTS: Now, hon. members opposite were not interrupted by me. I did not interrupt their leader, nor their House Leader. I would ask them to do me the courtesy, but if they prefer not to, I tell them: (a) I can shout as loud as anybody in this Chamber, if I have to; and (b) I have dealt with better than all of them put together, over the years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. ROBERTS: That includes the cracky dogs in the back benches.

[May 16, 1994]

You have Premiers:

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I have to say with great regret that I find the questions of the Leader of the Opposition - he is like a dog with a bone. He is like a little cracky that has his teeth around a wheel going rather fast. Mr. Speaker, he is like a little dog with a bone; he is gnawing and chewing and chewing and gnawing and he will not let go.

[May 22, 1998]

PC opposition backbenchers:

MR. J. BYRNE: The Member for Bellevue is like the little cracky over there, as usual, mouthing off, trying to say something. He doesn't have a clue what he is talking about, as per usual.

[December 7, 2000]

And again:

MR. J. BYRNE: Did you notice how different he is this sitting of the House, the Minister of Health? Can you remember when he was sitting on the other side over there, anytime we were up here saying anything controversial he was on his feet. Yap, yap, like the little crackie. He was like the little crackie following the car, but he is more reserved now. I do not know why. He is trying to make the impression that he is Premier or Premier material. What happens when the people of the Province finds out it is nothing but burlap?

[December 11, 2000]

Liberal Leaders of the Opposition:

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, can I have some protection from the cracky down there?

[April 3, 2006]

And PC Ministers of the Crown:

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible) the Leader of the Opposition to stop yapping over there, and behave like a little cracky rather than a saucy, vicious dog over there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

[May 18, 2006]

And even uses that were subject to a Speaker's intervention:

MR. JOYCE: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Mount Pearl, the crackie from Mount Pearl always has his mouth going but he does not have guts to stand up and criticize these numbers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JOYCE: If you want to stand up and say these numbers are wrong -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. JOYCE: He always has his mouth flapping over there but he does not have guts to stand up and say what is right or wrong. Stand up and criticize these figures. Do it if you are going to, if not stay quiet

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! I ask the hon. member if he would be a little bit sensitive to some of the language that he is using here in the House to refer to hon. members. I will just ask him if he would be kind enough to refer to hon. members as hon. members and not use some of the adjectives that he is presently using.

MR. JOYCE: I withdraw the crackie remark. I will do that. If I made that remark -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. JOYCE: But, Mr. Speaker, I do ask for a bit of protection over there because once the truth does come out they have a habit of not liking the truth.

[May 14, 2007]

(Mr. Joyce, incidentally, was the target of this bit of vitriol, which went unremarked by SOOC.)

And:

MR. SULLIVAN: We took money - when I say we, this Province, this government. They took hundreds of millions of dollars and spent it and wasted it on all kinds of things to get re-elected; everything to get re-elected. Will that crackie from Twillingate& Fogo, who is not in his seat, calm down a little there, Mr. Chair. He is trying to outshout somebody who is duly recognized here. That is what is wrong with that government, they cannot accept the truth-

MR. REID: Mr. Chair, you are talking about unparliamentary remarks. I ask the Minister of Finance to withdraw the last remark that he made about me, because it certainly was unparliamentary. It has been used in this House before and the speaker had to stand and withdraw the statement. I ask the hon. member to do the same thing.

CHAIR: The Chair did not hear what the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board said. The Chair was conversing with the Clerk of the House. If the minister said something that is unparliamentary, I ask him if he would withdraw that statement.

MR. SULLIVAN: I used the word a little crackie. If that is unparliamentary, I withdraw it. I meant to say a little Liberal. I withdraw it. If little crackie is unparliamentary, I withdraw it.

CHAIR: Order, please! I ask the member if he would withdraw the phrase little crackie.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, Mr. Chair, I withdraw the little crackie statement.

[May 3, 2005]

Huge difference, David.

Huge difference.

V for Vendetta

My but it's interesting how many members of the Spontaneous Outrage Organizational Committee, in their emails and phone calls defending the honour of Our Dear Premier and his phone usage habits, seem compelled to shoot the messenger — that Nape worker — with the word "vendetta".

Not at all unlike how, not so long ago, Spontaneous Outrage Organizational Committee invariably said that everyone and anyone who disagreed with Our Dear Premier about anything, was "negative" and engaged in "non-constructive criticism", "innuendo", and "personal attacks".

Of course, there really is no Spontaneous Outrage Organizational Committee, is there?

News from the Spontaneous Outrage Committee

Right on cue — and it is on cue; hi, 8th floor! — the Spontaneous Outrage Committee has been directing the usual Spontaneously Outraged suspects to express their Spontaneous Outrage about some of the late musings of the "mainland" press.

Latest target for the Lynch-Wente-Dolphin Periodical If Irregular Memorial Media Lynching?

Jeffrey Simpson of the — insert spitting noise or rude gesture here — Globe and Mail, come on down! You're the next contestant on Whatever You Said, It's Not Right.

Your crime? Saying things that many people say, in private, but are afraid to say in public.

Of course, this is all part of Mainland Media Anti-Newfoundland Campaign of Anti-Newfoundlandishness.

Except that it's not, for, among other reasons, that no such campaign exists.

Of course, everyone "knows" that Mainland Media are out to get poor little old us.

But the problem with something that everyone "knows" is that everyone gets selective in the evidence they gather.

Everyone remembers the offence they took at the words of Charles Lynch, Margaret Wente, Ric Dolphin. They were emailed around; faxed around before email; passed around before fax; read over the air into the echo chamber of Newfoundland nationalist outrage, possibly the easiest thing in the world to stir up.

Even today there are people who still won't touch the Globe and Mail because of "what that *&%$# Charles Lynch said in 1990"... even though Charles Lynch wrote for the Ottawa Citizen.

That'll larn 'em.

What no one remembers, though, in part because they weren't emailed, faxed, or passed around; in part because they don't meet the selection criteria for the self-selection process of the Spontaneous Outrage Committee and all its local cells; what no one remembers is the in-depth and sensitive coverage of Newfoundland, and even Labrador, by now-prominent national journalists like Barbara Yaffe in the Globe and Mail, during the early and mid-1980s.

No one remembers that back in the 1930s, the same Financial Post that is now often the target of Spontaneous Outrage Committee's Spontaneous Outrage, was the defender of poor little ol' Newfoundland against the stylings of Saturday Night.

And no one remembers that the Globe and Mail that it is now your Patriotic Duty to hate — hi, 8th floor! — ran the following editorial, and others like it, on May 5, 1984:

Legal, but unfair

The Supreme Court of Canada had no choice but to strike down Newfoundland's Reversion Act of 1980 as unconstitutional. The act was a thinly-veiled attempt to break the 1969 contract between Hydro-Quebec and the Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corp. which led to the creation of North America's second-largest hydro plant in Labrador. However unfair that contract has turned out to be - and it is grossly unfair - the Supreme Court had no legal ground to let Newfoundland interfere with contract rights outside its territory.

We can't fault Newfoundland for trying. It finds itself burdened with a singularly outrageous contract, negotiated in unfavorable circumstances in the mid-sixties. Quebec Premier Jean Lesage had refused to let Newfoundland drive a power corridor across Quebec soil to deliver power to the United States, and seemed quite prepared to outwait Newfoundland on the terms of developing Churchill [sic] - an issue complicated by Quebec's reluctance to concede that Labrador is unquestionably Newfoundland territory.

What the Churchill Falls Corp. arranged, and what the Newfoundland Legislature ratified, was an agreement to sell almost all of the falls' 5,225-megawatt output to Hydro-Quebec at a modest rate for 65 years. If the agreement initially looked like a contract both sides could live with, so much so that Newfoundland Premier Joey Smallwood considered it a triumph of his political career, the effects of inflation and OPEC have made it untenable - a predictable consequence of signing a contract stretching halfway into the next century. Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford says Quebec now benefits by $790-million a year under the contract, re-selling the power to other provinces and to the U.S., while Newfoundland receives only $8-million.

The ball is in Quebec's court to restore some balance to a contract which is plainly iniquitous. Quebec Energy Minister Yves Duhaime says his province is willing to negotiate a package deal with Newfoundland involving other potential hydro-electric projects, particularly on the Lower Churchill River, but neither he nor Premier Rene Levesque will say whether Quebec, as a gesture of good faith, will raise the share of money Newfoundland receives under the existing contract. And that, surely, is where the matter should begin; to use the current inequities as bait to make Newfoundland sign additional contracts would inject a most unwelcome note of duress into the bargaining.

Mr. Peckford has appealed for help to the federal Government, which has the power, for example, to order a transmission corridor driven through Quebec to help Newfoundland unilaterally develop the Lower Churchill. We would prefer to think that Quebec, recognizing the justice of Newfoundland's claim as well as its financial woes, will have the grace to strike a reasonable bargain on its own, for the sake of future development and of its neighboring province.

There is no vast anti-Newfoundland mainland media campaign, just as, despite the best efforts of certain columnists, past and present, for the Telegram, there is no vast anti-Labrador one.

So just whose interests are being served when politicians and pundits try to convince the public that there is?

What is their ultimate goal in doing so?