Leave it to Old Harry - he can tell you all about the failures of Danny Williams!

Equalization will have to change again - if Ottawa is going to appease Quebec. Unfortunately - it will all be too late for us.

So the feds and Quebec are set to make a deal on offshore oil - in the disputed area between Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec. Old Harry as the area is nicknamed will see Quebec receive 100% of the royalties from any oil recovered.

Now the problem - Quebec - who argued that NL should not be exempt from equalization respecting oil revenues - non-renewable resource revenues - will now have to argue that they should be able to keep all the revenues without being penalized by Ottawa.

The Atlantic Accord which was supposed to insure that Newfoundland and Labrador was the primary beneficiary of offshore oil development - did not deliver on that promise. The weakness of the agreement - signed off by our politicians of the time - became evident as we witnessed Ottawa claw back close to 80% of the revenues under equalization. So for years the ranting went on - and finally the Williams administration caught Paul Martin on a weak political moment and righted the historical wrong. The Government of Canada passed over 2 billion which at least partially compensated our province by making us the primary beneficiary of the resource.

Then along came Harper - who promised equalization changes that would remove revenues from non-renewable resources from the formulary - allowing our children to benefit from resources that we were going to expire.

Harper lied - became the Prime Minister and then proceeded to put our province virtually right back to where we were before we made gains. That lie cost our province over 10 billion dollars. Danny started the ABC campaign - Conservatives were not elected in any riding and Fabian went to the Senate.

Problem is Danny was bluffing - there was no consequence to Harper - and then Danny quit. He had the political support but he chose to sit back and allow our province to be screwed - yet again - by Ottawa.

Now what do you think will happen to Quebec - do you believe they will let Ottawa claw back revenues from oil or gas under equalization? I for one am not that stupid. If Quebec ever recovers oil from this offshore parcel - equalization will be changed to accommodate that development. By then our resources will effectively be exhausted and the change will provide minimal to no return for us.

Today the feds and Quebec are set to sign a deal on the deposit ( potential 2 billion barrels of oil and 5,000 billion cubic feet natural gas) with environmental studies set to be complete by 2012.

Then there are the lagging questions - once again left hanging by Premier Williams - who owns the resource, which boundary is correct, if Newfoundland and Labrador opposes it what is the government going to do about it?

So Danny thinks he got one up on Quebec with the Emera deal. What a failure - and what a cost to our people.