Now let's deal with Emerson and Softwood Lumber

First-up Quebec is on top of it again - as usual. If their industry accepts the Canadian sell-out to the American's deal the province wants the difference between what Canada negotiated as a settlement for illegal American tariffs on softwood lumber and the court decision.
Quebec is prepared to back a reduced financial compensation package as long as somebody pays their industry the full value of what the Courts awarded.
Read Story Here

Having dealt with that - and that will be interesting to watch, because the Government of Quebec will then claim that the feds have downloaded the costs for the province to cover - then the feds before the next election will compensate the province for the difference.

Then there was the Federal threat to the Canadian industry if they did not back the American giveway deal. You see there is nothing left to call it because the courts have ruled that the Amercian tariffs on Canadian sofwood lumber were contrary to trade agreements and therefore the monies paid by the Canadian wood companies were to be refunded.
Because the mighty Harper (true north strong and free PM) thought that he could not get the Americans to pay up what they owed - he went ahead and gave a break to "the largest and greatest economy in the world".

Now back to the threat and what it means to Newfoundland and Labrador ( because I kind of only care about that).
The threat was:

A senior government official warned opponents of the deal (Globe and Mail, August 4th 2006):

“… Should prepare themselves for the consequences of rejecting it… and might want to start contemplating a world where Ottawa is no longer in the business of subsidizing softwood disputes.”

This is tough talk but what does it mean – a government in abdication? Negotiating treaties and agreements is the jurisdiction of the federal government.

It is a sweet irony that the official in question uses the word “subsidizing” as this is just what this agreement does- it grants the US a massive subsidy at the expense of Canadian producers!

Another “Tory official” states in the same article:

“If industry rejects this deal, everyone walks away and absolutely nothing about the previous Liberal government’s costly stopgap approach to the deal is guaranteed.”

This quote was used in the story here

So let's get this straight - the feds who are compensating a provincial resource industry because the feds are responsible for fighting trade disputes, have threatened the provinces and the industry that they will haul away interim funding, income stabilization, industry loans etc. while the racket is taking place.

Hey Newfoundland and Labrador what happened to the federal government subsidy, loans asssitance and every other money they could think of for the FISHERY which they are fully responsible for?

It would be nice to hear such a threat from Loyola - we will not continue to subsidize your industry if you don't agree to back us on????? If we could actually get a threat like that - it would mean that they were actually doing something for our cornerstone industry (like the auto plants in Ontario), the fishery.

Loyola can't even make such a threat because he isn't providing anything to take away.

To make matters worse - with the new found love-in almost hippy-like relationship with NAFO, what ever happened to the unfair and crippling shrimp tariffs being levied by Europe? Geez Loyola that's a trade issue! Can we get some attention please?

People we are being crucified by the federal and provincial governments - and the only thing the politicans listen to is the Portnoys and Alexis email on a day to day basis.

Randy Simms do you think you should have asked Sam Synard about the plight of the peninsula when he called in to congratulate intergovernmental affairs Minister Ottenhiemer on his strong support for the Portnoys?