It takes a special kind of political acumens for a regional Canadian politician to make news headlines both north and south of the border, but Danny Williams has done it.

The Blogosphere across North America lit up a few weeks ago with the news that the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador was heading to an undisclosed American medical facility for a no-further-details-given heart surgery last week. Canadian progressives are chastising Williams for bailing on his at-home medical options while American opponents of healthcare reform get a new scapegoat for why a public option doesn’t work.

Simplistic? Probably. Williams’ people were less than helpful when the news broke, initiating what CBC reporter Janyce McGregor called a “cone of silence” about the matter.

What we do know is that after “weeks of consultation” with doctors, Williams decided to head stateside for the surgery which was apparently unavailable in his home province. This was according to Deputy Premier Kathy Dunderdale, for whom the odious duty of informing the media fell.
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Part 1: Pure Laine & King Danny: first impressions of an Albertan CFA in Newfoundland and Labrador.


Newfoundlanders call newcomers to the province Come From Aways (or CFAs). I’ve been a CFA now for about six months since arriving here for Grad school from Alberta. Before getting here I’d heard in the news of premier Danny Williams’ various attacks on the Harper government for this affront or that, and I’d seen enough CBC television to have a picture of St. John’s and its colourful row houses (painted for years with lead paint which is now wrecking havoc with local soil quality) perched on jagged rocks. It wasn’t much of an impression sure, but about as good of one as one might hope spending the past 25 years between Alberta, Quebec and abroad–all places where Newfoundland and Labrador is the last thing on anyone’s mind (with the exception of importing Newfoundlanders for work in the Alberta Oil Patch, but that awareness doesn’t stem from any sensitivity to Newfoundland and Labrador, it is merely a resource worth exploiting).
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