Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More (26 page)

And he further elaborated that “the Government of Canada and
the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador should jointly establish a Board or
Commission in the context of which information can be shared, management
objectives clarified and coordinated, policy directions set, and strategies
developed.”

Mr. Leslie Dean, former deputy minister and assistant deputy minister of
Fisheries for the province, in a well-argued presentation ( “Transition and
Change: The Fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador Society”) before the Royal
Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada, in March, 2003,
said, “A solid collaborative policy approach is critical to the rebuilding of
the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery on a viable and sustainable foundation”
(10).

The Commission itself in its final report (June, 2003) highlighted its concern
for the fishery by using the title “The Last Chance for the Fishery,” and in
most of its recommendations echoed what I (and the government I had led) had
been saying twenty-five years earlier: joint management and unilateral action by
the Government of Canada concerning the crucial fishing areas outside
the 200-mile limit.

In 2005, I wrote a letter on the subject.

Looking back now, it is sad to think that Newfoundland as a society could not
come together on such a vital issue as this. What, I wonder, does it say about
us?

And so the first of our three major actions failed—perhaps the one that of the
three had the best chance over time to maintain a viable rural way of life in
coastal Newfoundland and Labrador.

We were dejected, yet there were many people who continued to support our
agenda, and my visits to rural Newfoundland invigorated my spirit, like a visit
to my new friend in Pilley's Island.

I was told that Wesley Pittman of Pilley's Island was a hardcase. When,
in 1972, I was into my first campaign in Green Bay District, the boys from
Pilley's who were introducing me around told me I would have to make a courtesy
call on Skipper Wes. I called him a hardcase because he had a bit of a name.
That's what the boys said, and the boys knew, and given that I needed them (much
more than they realized), I wasn't going to argue. It seems he owned a few
schooners years back and fished them off Labrador like many fishermen from
Newfoundland did in those times. Apparently he lost a couple of them—storms, he
said—but the boys, well, they said there was this dirty rumour making the rounds
for years that they were insurance jobs. To my knowledge, they never, ever
confronted Skipper Wes
with this. Perhaps it was just good juicy
gossip over a beer or shots of moonshine or just plain jealousy. Gossip in small
communities was a wonderful thing; it kept people busy during the long winter
nights, and the last thing you wanted was asking someone who would know some
contrary information concerning it. Doing that might explode all that yarning—it
was like a disease, and worse than most. I figured the boys wanted a subject for
gossip and perhaps had some genuine envy because, notwithstanding Wes's sparse
surroundings, he had, everyone said, “a bit of money.” But Wes insisted to me,
“I worked bloody hard for what I got and it ain't very much.”

Anyway, before that day's campaigning was over I got to meet the man himself.
He was a short, bald man with thick glasses halfway down his nose. He was
wearing a plaid shirt, an old pair of trousers, and braces. He was about
seventy-seven then, possessed of a lively mind and impish grin. He seemed a
little reserved at first and I was soon to find out why. See, Skipper Wes was
independent, all right, but he had a beer licence. In those days (the Liberal
Smallwood era was just coming to a close), to get a beer licence you had to be
“on the right side politically,” and of course that meant Skipper Wes was a
Liberal. Here he was talking it up with a young Tory candidate—and he knew I was
aware of the situation.

Later, in my many visits to see him as his representative in the legislature,
he maintained that he pulled one over on Smallwood and the Liberals because he
really was a closet Tory the whole time. I sort of took that with a grain of
salt and never pressed the matter again; I just enjoyed his many yarns, watching
him savour his scotch, and seeing his genuine delight when I would turn up to
see him.

It was on one of these visits that he up and told me that he was in the First
World War, Royal Navy: “I got no records to show for it and the Canadian Legion
knows it is true, but they are a no good lot 'cause they can't get my papers for
me.” This was a serious matter for him and he cursed at those around him who
thought that it was just another one of his tall tales like his many exaggerated
Labrador cod fishing yarns. I could see that of all the things we yarned about,
this matter stuck in his craw. And I had found out that he was aware of the
rumours of the
insurance jobs but took that as a joke, that the
boys didn't know any better. But his war papers, now that was another
matter.

Well, I knew I had better try and do something about that! Of course, when I
told him that I was going to check on it, he displayed his impish grin and
exclaimed, “No young Tory could ever do something about such a complicated thing
as that!” On reflection, there may just have been a bit of intrigue in this
comment. He likely said it to urge me on.

So, together with my political assistant, we went to work on contacting the
Admiralty in London. Between the jigs and the reels, many months later we were
successful in getting, let's call it a certificate, verifying that Wesley
Pittman of Pilley's Island, Newfoundland, was indeed in the Royal Navy and
served overseas during the First World War.

On a sunny fall day I entered the porch of Wes's house and peered across the
kitchen. There he was in the corner, sitting in his favourite old chair, pipe in
hand, scotch bottle on the side table. He was partly leaning over trying to read
from an old, dusty book, undeterred by his failing sight in the dimly lit room.
He heard someone in the porch and growled a hello.

As I moved from the porch to the kitchen he growled again. Standing now in the
middle of the kitchen, still unrecognized by Wes, I loudly announced: “Seaman
Wesley J. Pittman, number 067541, His Majesty's Royal Navy, 1915–1917.
Attention!”

At first confused, it slowly dawned on him that something special was
happening. He rose to his feet, marched a few paces to stand in front of me,
stood to attention, and saluted. He was now close enough to recognize me.

In as good an official military voice as I could muster, I declared, “Seaman
Pittman, it gives me great pleasure to present to you your certificate of
service in the Royal Navy!” I passed the certificate to him and, with a tear
edging down his aged face, he exclaimed, “I never thought this would ever
happen!”

My assistant, who had been waiting outside, entered and we took pictures of the
event and had it displayed the next week in the local newspaper.

Skipper Wes died a few years later, a happy man, and was buried
at Head's Harbour, the settlement of his youth, with the Canadian Legion proudly
present.

“Labrador—‘the land God gave to Cain'”

— Jacques Cartier

THE CHURCHILL RIVER OF
Labrador consists of three major
hydro-development sites: the so-called Upper Churchill, by far the largest
at 5,280 megawatts, and two others on the lower part of the river, Gull Island
and Muskrat Falls.

Every Newfoundlander and Labradorian knows of the Upper Churchill Falls
development and most particularly of the Upper Churchill contract with Quebec.
This was Smallwood's greatest failure of all. I remember being in Churchill
Falls when this project was officially “opened,” July 16, 1972, having been
inaugurated five years earlier by Smallwood and Edmund de Rothschild. Premier
Moores, Prime Minister Trudeau, and Premier Bourassa were all there. Funny how
we all could be there (I was the newly minted first Conservative Member for the
district of Green Bay) to celebrate the official sellout of Newfoundland water
to Quebec!

This is one singular development that could have given the province historic
and economic viability, to be a “have” province, if only we were getting our
fair share of the revenues from current prices for electricity. This haunts all
Newfoundlanders to this day and remains a bitter lesson in how not to develop a
resource. People unfamiliar with the project are amazed and dumbfounded when
they are informed of the details. In 1980, my administration published a booklet
regarding Labrador Hydro Power entitled “The Energy Priority of Newfoundland and
Labrador: Fairness and Equity in the Utilization of the Churchill Falls Hydro
Resource
.
” In it the Upper Churchill contract details are provided.
Let me quote:

It is any wonder Newfoundlanders and Labradorians don't forget?

Several think tanks have concluded that Newfoundland's loss of economic rent on
this project is somewhere between $500 million to $1 billion per year. In
a 1978 briefing note from Newfoundland Hydro to Premier Moores, the economic
rent loss to Newfoundland was estimated at $810 million for the year 1979. The
Economic Council of Canada's report of 1980, entitled “From Dependency to
Self-Reliance,” although a timid and disappointing analysis in many ways, was
forced to say in its Summary and Recommendations, “The contract with Hydro
Quebec to develop Churchill Falls hydroelectric power has failed to return
proportional revenues to Newfoundland.”

This inequitable, unconscionable contract has been left to stand by successive
federal governments with but mild attempts by some of them to help, such
attempts being mainly a commitment by the prime minister to talk to the premier
of Quebec. Sometimes it was insulting, as when I was approached at a
constitutional meeting of first ministers by an envoy of Prime Minister Trudeau
to indicate that if I was a little more compromising on the offshore, the PM
would talk to Quebec about the hydro situation. The messenger could see by the
look on my face that I was furious. I don't remember my exact response, but it
would have been something along the lines of, “You must be joking—this is
insulting: for a verbal promise through an envoy I am to relent on the last real
chance for my province.”
Later, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney at
least put in writing that he had tried. In a letter to me dated February 16,
1988, Mr. Mulroney addressed our recent conversation on the matter: