Is nobody curious about this?
From a column in today’s Telegram by Michael Johansen (emphasis added):
The details of the New Dawn pact were finally released and, although they confused many voters before the referendum, leading to a situation described as “chaotic,” one point was made clear: the Innu would be paid $2 million within days as compensation for damage caused to them by the original Churchill Falls development.
The word “compensation”, in its truest sense, would seem to be independent of some future or subsequent act. If the original Churchill Falls development justified a form of “compensation”, then such “compensation” would be compensatory regardless of any subsequent decision or act by the people to whom such “compensation” is owed.
In a hypothetical scenario where the Innu had rejected the New Dawn agreement, would they still receive compensation?
If the answer to that question is “no”, then this so-called “compensation” isn’t really compensation for a previous act or grievance at all. Rather, it is a payment made conditional upon voting a certain way to achieve a certain outcome.
Payments – particularly those to be made within days – to groups or individuals contingent on their voting a certain way are generally frowned upon. In most cases, they’re outright illegal.
Would no one be troubled, or at least curious enough to enquire if in the next election, I went knocking on doors with a campaign slogan like “Ten Grand In The Hand”?
