Steve Neary was the former leader of the Liberal Party and best known for his work in what was, at the time, Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. He told me many years ago that in politics timing was EVERYTHING. He said it had to do with when to go to the polls and when not to go to the polls . He said it also had to do with subtle nuances around winning and losing . Steve also told me though that sometimes a government’s “best before date” simply arrives.

Steve pointed out that over time various grievances against the government emerge in the electorate. People just get tired of the people in power. It isn’t necessarily that they created horrible injustices against the electorate. He said there is just a buildup of people not being satisfied, for a variety of reasons, with government. Steve said when THAT happens Batman AND Robin can’t save that government. They have to go.

So it is now that the Liberals were shown the door in the provincial election. I thought they would win with a reduced majority, which shows you what I know, but the pollsters also had it wrong. Pre-election polls talked about the possibility of a Liberal minority government. Nobody talked about a PC majority government but that is what we have today.

There were surprises galore election night. There always are. In every election expectations are raised and hearts are broken. That is the nature of politics. It is very difficult to put your name forward and have people decide if they want you to represent them or not. I can tell you from personal experience it isn’t easy to have people take a look at you as the person to represent them in the House of Assembly and then say through ballots they cast; “Thanks but no thanks.” It is humbling.

Something else that can be put in “the little book of elections” is that if you had all the votes on election day that were promised to you during the campaign then everyone would be a winner. I have a friend who was a candidate some years ago for the PCs in a rural seat. On election night when the votes were counted he had lost so he went down to his opponent’s headquarters to offer his congratulations to the winner. That is normal thing to do. When he got there, however, he found a lot of people who he thought were supporters of his but who were now “belly up to the bar” at his opponent’s victory party. Welcome to politics. Who ever told you everything was fair and honest in politics was selling you a bill of goods.

Anyway, the election is over and the people have spoken. Joe Smallwood said once after a defeat in a byelection that the people have expressed their God-given right to be wrong. I don’t think that. The people have spoken. Why they said what they said is a complicated matter . For instance. the MOU with Quebec over power development. I think a lot of people are against it. People are against it I think, not because they understand it, but because they are still angry about the horrible 1969 power contract.

That’s why I hope Premier-designate Wakeham doesn’t move forward with a complicated referendum question. You can have a referendum on simple yes or no questions. That is why a referendum on denominational education made sense. The question was simple and direct although the subject was controversial. You can have a referendum on another level on something like capital punishment. The question is easy to understand, all things being relative.

I don’t even pretend to understand all the issues in the MOU power agreement with Quebec. To have everyone in the province voting on it is a situation that, to use an old labour relations term, “invites mischief”.

There you go. That is my two cents’ worth on the election. My predications were wrong but they almost always are. I never get those things right. Good luck to Tony Wakeham and his crew though. They have earned the right to govern and we all wish them well.

You can contact Jim Furlong at [email protected]