Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More (15 page)

“You dirty Tory. You get out of here, get out of my garden; you was no good
when you was here as a welfare officer and you’re no better now. Get, get, get.”
And so, like a scalded cat, I retreated to the safety of the public road. And so
ended my campaigning on the north shore of Green Bay!

In the bottom of Green Bay, and not far from Springdale by road, were the
communities of King’s Point and Rattling Brook. There was a smattering of
Conservatives here (Guy Bartlett and his wife and
family, true
conservatives who, despite this known political affiliation, had a successful
grocery business, and he was renowned for his honesty and fair play) and some
indication that we were gaining some additional political ground. Farther out
the other side of the bay were the communities of Jackson’s Cove, Silverdale,
and Harry’s Harbour (and two smaller places: Langdon’s Cove and Nick’s Nose
Cove). Once again there seemed to be some political change in the air and I was
feeling a little better.

Closer to Springdale were the small communities of Beachside, Little Bay, and
St. Patrick’s, the last two the only Catholic communities in the whole district,
and they were almost 100% Catholic. Because I was teaching then at what was
called the Integrated School (Protestant without the Pentecostals) and there
were insufficient high school students to warrant their own school, the Catholic
parents sent their children to the school where I taught in Springdale.
Therefore, I knew a lot of the parents in these communities. Many of the
Catholics were Conservatives, a real holdover from the early Confederation
battles of the 1940s when the Catholic Church, along with the Conservatives,
opposed Confederation. The door-to-door campaign here provided a welcome relief
from the negativism of the north shore and further lifted my spirits. Beachside
was a Pentecostal community, and though it looked like I was making some
inroads, Smallwood and the Liberals prevailed, although I had wonderful support
from Sandy Young and his wife, who were true supporters and later became
friends. They were small business people who understood the need for change and
came to resent the demagoguery prevalent among many of the Liberal
supporters.

My Springdale team was growing, and upon their advice it was decided that I
should immediately go to the southeast of the district and begin campaigning
there. My first stop was Sunday Cove Island and the communities of Miles Cove
and Port Anson. Parenthetically, the town of South Brook where I lived (right in
the bottom of Halls Bay), was bypassed on the assumption that I would win it
anyway, there being a large minority of PCs there long before I came around.
Fortunately, this turned out to be an accurate forecast, since
I won it handily. I was always of the view—and still am—that if those who know
you best do not support you without campaign pressure, there is little hope of
success in more unfamiliar places.

Sunday Cove Island was not much more than a stone’s throw from the Newfoundland
mainland, and every election the people had been promised by Mr. Smallwood’s
son, Bill (who had been the MHA from 1949 to 1971), that a causeway was to be
built during the next term. It never happened in all the twenty-two years of
Liberal rule. Nevertheless, it was strongly Liberal.

This is one of the most puzzling aspects of political affairs. Here were two
small communities still religiously Liberal in spite of all the broken promises
of their most important issue, delivered repeatedly by the son of the only
living father and on one occasion by the “living father” himself. The people
there were most respectful of my presence and somewhat surprised that I would
“waste” my time there. I knocked on every single door, perhaps 100 to 150 in
total. I remember that I lost Miles Cove in that first election, but won it big
in the second election of 1975 by a whopping 47 to 2. It was a bit of a puzzle
to the locals who those two holdout Liberals were, and on a subsequent visit
after the second election, I was walking on the landwash to get to a nearby home
when I suddenly saw an elderly gentleman picking up shells on the beach. Of
course, I hailed a hello and approached him.

“Good day, sir,” I said. “It’s a nice one.”

“Yes,” he responded, “a large one indeed.”

He did not recognize me. I introduced myself.

“Yes, yes, of course. I wasn’t home when you knocked on my door a few years
ago. Well, it is nice to meet you, sir. You’ve done well, and you’ve got our
causeway for us.”

“Yes, I did,” I said proudly. “I can count on your vote next time?” I
inquired.

“Well, I don’t know about that. I haven’t voted for you yet. But you seem like
a good fellow. I guess I will have to think about it next time. But, Joey was a
good man!”

So here was one of the two holdouts, now identified. Loyalties
remained.

“Well sir, your vote is secret and that is your choice. Nice meeting you,” I
said as I proceeded on the beach.

There were two other islands in the district: Little Bay Islands and Long
Island. I went to Little Bay Islands (very Liberal) late one evening and began a
furious door-to-door the next day. I got people up out of bed in the morning,
and that evening, on my final door, I got an elderly couple out of bed. I don’t
know if that helped or hindered my prospects, but I was determined that this
young Tory could never be accused of not trying to make contact with everyone
and that the old fish merchant label of decades past no longer was a relevant
characteristic of today’s Progressive Conservatives.

I remember a middle-aged widow who lived “down near the water” from the local
road. There was a bit of a flat, not much but enough to keep a cow and a few
chickens. What struck me was the independence and resilience of this woman—her
optimism was a stark contrast to others I had met that day who were almost
blaming me for the fact that there was little fish, or that the road was unfit,
or that the ferry was late. I don’t know how she voted, but it was people like
her who kept me going, knowing that my project was a pretty minimal one compared
to her project of just making ends meet.

Long Island was not far from Little Bay Islands and was linked to it by ferry
and to the mainland by the one provincial ferry system. Unlike Little Bay
Islands, there were a number of individual communities set in the many coves
that dotted the island: Beaumont South and North and Beaumont Central and Lushes
Bight. Here delightful old English was spoken; the Beaumont communities were
more Liberal, while Lushes Bight seemed ready for change. The rallying cry was
that of wanting their own ferry. Later they got their own ferry, but as I write
I have people from the island emailing me telling me that it is about to be
lost. It is a symbol of what has happened to rural Newfoundland as the ground
fishery has failed and larger centres draw the young for education and
work.

The last places I visited (Robert’s Arm, Pilley’s Island, and Triton)
were those that seemed to be conducive to change and where
people had already begun organizing with the help of the campaign office in
Springdale. Two earlier events had already given traction for this area to move
away from the Liberal Party. One was the earlier Liberal leadership campaign and
the other was the IWA—the International Woodworkers of America.

I had campaigned especially in this area of the district for John Crosbie’s
leadership and many people had got involved. There were a number of active
Liberals who witnessed some of the unusual tactics of the Smallwood loyalists
and were not impressed. So there was fertile ground for a resurgent PC Party in
the Robert’s Arm area.

Farther along the shore were Triton and Brighton. The people of this area were
renowned for their hard work and determination. Many here were highliner
fishermen, top loggers for the paper mill in Grand Falls, or foremen and
excellent tradesmen for provincial construction companies. I came to learn that
few communities in the province could match the initiative and drive of these
people. When I did campaign there, I was told by the newly minted poll captains
that I did not need to spend much time there, that they had everything under
control, that the people here would vote for me, and I should spend my time in
the other part of the bay, where I needed to get new votes. And the IWA issue of
the late fifties was not forgotten.

The loggers of the province were eager to be more organized. At that time they
had what the loggers considered to be an ineffective group to represent them
called the Newfoundland Loggers Association. The International Woodworkers of
America were invited by the loggers to represent them and the IWA obliged. It
was not long before an impasse occurred with the Anglo-Newfoundland Development
(A. N. D.) Company, the owners and operators of the Grand Falls mill, ancillary
wood camps, and the new union, the IWA, which led to a strike by the loggers for
better wages and living conditions. Meanwhile, the old Loggers Association and
much of the media opposed the IWA’s intrusion into the Newfoundland forest
industry and its fiery leader, H. Landon Ladd.

The strike reached its sixth week when Premier Smallwood, sensing a populace
that was negative toward the new union,
intervened and passed
legislation stripping the IWA of bargaining rights in the province and
established a new organization that the loggers would have to represent them.
Public support was hardened against the IWA when, in a confrontation on the
picket line, a policeman was killed. Through all of this, most loggers supported
the IWA, none more staunchly than the loggers in the Triton area. I was now the
recipient of fertile ground that had been partly tilled earlier, and the loggers
and other independent people had had enough of an intrusive and partisan
government. I gained a lot of inspiration from the people of this whole area,
both in the last days of the campaign and during all my years in government.
They were and are a fair people, eager to work and strong contributors to their
respective communities.

Two Triton stories that symbolize their zeal for work and craftiness need to be
told.

My first portfolio as a Cabinet Member was Minister of Municipal Affairs. The
council of Triton decided they should visit me at my office in St. John’s. I
mean, it was good to have your MHA, the minister of the very department to which
all municipal councils reported. And so they arrived in the capital and, in
addition to the regular meetings, I invited them to dinner. Of course we hashed
over the results of the departmental meetings and other matters of mutual
importance, including fish or the lack thereof.

And then one of the councillors looked at the mayor and uttered: “Well, we
better tell him, your Worship.”

“Tell him what?” responded a surprised mayor.

“Well, you know . . .” said the now-subdued councillor.

“I thought we had agreed that we would not mention it,” said the mayor.

“Well, I have had a change of mind,” the councillor retorted.

“Well, Brian, it’s like this,” the mayor began. “We have this piece of land,
the only decent piece of land to economically make into a subdivision. So we
divided it into lots and put in a road and services. And we have been selling
the lots. I think we got them sold now.”

I intervened. “I think that is fine.”

“Yes,” said the mayor, “but we were rather careful about who
got the lots.”

“What do you mean?” I said, puzzled.

“There are some people who would not be an asset to the town, who don’t work
that much, who would bring the town down. We refused a couple of lots to people
like that.”

And then on another occasion the council told me of their very legal but
unusual financing. When the council was started, first the councillors were told
that they could expect certain monies from the province. They would get a dollar
from the province for each dollar the town raised, up to a certain amount, then
seventy-five cents for each dollar to another amount and then fifty cents . .
.

Well, the council got to thinking. If they could get all their taxes paid
really early in the year, instead of having it spread over the whole year, the
province would have to provide the matching funds and the council would have a
sizable amount of money, most of which it could deposit in the bank and make
interest. No other municipality did this.

But I digress from the campaign . . .

My last day of the campaign was in Springdale, where the campaign office over
the previous week was beginning to balloon with new people who wanted to help.
The poll captains and their helpers blanketed the town and taught the new poll
captains in the other communities around the district to identify those who were
definitely going to vote for us, those who were definitely opposed, and those
who were truly undecided, and then on polling day to get those for us out by
noon, those undecided by suppertime, and any of these two groups who were out of
town or busy earlier, out before the polls closed. What a day.

And then about ten minutes before the polls closed I noticed that there was a
decided for us that had not voted. I shouted, “What happened here? Margaret Warr
hasn’t voted. Who slipped up?”

“Well, no one, boss,” Davis Hull exclaimed. “Marg is nine months pregnant, can
go any time, you know.”

“No, I did not know,” I retorted. I knew we were closing in. I could not lose
by one vote! “Who has a car? Let’s go.”

We made a mad dash for Marg’s door. She opened the door wearing
her housecoat.