'We don't know who to trust'

Flowers Cove -

Flowers Cove area residents are disillusioned by the political process.

That feeling boiled over into anger and distrust during a town hall meeting called by The Straits and White Bay Liberal candidate Marshall Dean and Opposition Leader Yvonne Jones at the Flowers Cove Lions Club on Oct. 14.

First, the politicians spoke, as the crowd of some 50 people sat back with their arms folded.

That collective posture didn't last long.

Mr. Dean, a St. Anthony native who owns the Canada Ice water bottling company, explained to the crowd that he's been on council, health and education boards, a founding chair of the Grenfell Foundation and a president of the chamber of commerce.

"I don't have all the answers, but I've learned a lot of things along the way, between when I was a blond-haired boy to a mostly bald, grey-haired man, and I want to pull that together now and use my time and my resources, along with people like Yvonne...that's what I want to do. And if I do anything less than serve you...I would have failed in what I want to do."

Ms. Jones hit the Williams' government in three areas: Its indifference to the survival of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, its backpedaling on the operating hours of the Strait of Belle Isle Health Centre for votes, and ignoring pleas to help struggling fishermen and plant workers cope with the worst season in recent memory.

The provincial budget doubled since 2004 from $4-billion to $8.4-billion, Ms. Jones told the crowd, and yet rural communities on the Northern Peninsula are floundering.

"We're twice as rich as a province, but there are fish and plant workers barely surviving," she said.

"I just drove over that road (in Flowers Cove), and I'd be ashamed if I was a Tory candidate," she stated to applause from the crowd. "They convinced half of us that we should be happy with what we got."

Then the floor opened up to the crowd.

The collective posture broke into fragments - some still sitting back with their arms folded languidly, some perched forward on the edge of their seats, their voices rising, and some standing shouting across the room.

But the sentiment was uniform: We can't trust any politician, PC, Liberal, NDP or otherwise.

"Our fishery's gone, our health's gone," one said. "If we don't get a plant on our coast, we're not going to have a fishery."

"We're in that big of a state we don't even know who to vote for," said another. "We don't know who to trust anymore - we don't know who to trust.

"Can we get a government here for one week?"

Mr. Dean and Ms. Jones stood before the crowd listening, their arms folded, their faces growing longer as the people argued amongst themselves about who's trustworthy: "Who can we trust? We knows we can't trust the PCs...But let's take chances, and see can we trust (Mr. Dean) up there, and if we can't trust him in two years' time if he gets elected, say good-bye, period."