The Rock, in a Hard Place

It has been (half) jokingly said that the perennial misfortune of Newfoundlanders is to be governed by Newfoundland politicians. Sadly, anyone looking at the political climate of the province over the last half decade would be hard pressed to disagree with such sentiment. With a collapse in oil prices accentuated by poor fiscal policy, the people of the province affectionately known as the Rock are having to contend with one of the worst economic climates since Ottawa imposed a cod moratorium in 1992.

A have-not province for most of its 68 years within the Canadian federation, Newfoundland is now seeing what appears to be the end of the most lucrative years in both its pre- and post–Confederation history. Thanks in part to a hard-fought struggle with Ottawa for offshore resource rights in the 1980s, Newfoundlanders waited in long anticipation for the oil royalties to flow into government coffers and see, what former premier Brian Peckford so eloquently termed, that...