The apocalypse is here: Danny Williams says something nice about S. J. Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's fiercest and sometimes most effective critic has decided to shut down his campaign against Ottawa's Conservatives in recognition of the severity of the economic and fiscal crisis.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams, who leads his province's Progressive Conservative Party, ran an ABC campaign — Anybody But Conservative — during last month's federal election. Largely because of that, the federal Conservatives lost all three seats they held in the province and were wiped off the provincial electoral map.

But today — just a few weeks later — at their first meeting since the federal election, Williams said that period of acrimonious Ottawa-St. John's relations is over and he even had good things to say about the job Ottawa has been doing to deal with the crisis. This, of course, from a man who would only refer to the Right Honourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper simply as “Steve” for the last couple of years.

“Those days are behind me,” Williams told me after he and other premiers had a behind-closed-doors three-hour “workshop” on the global and Canadian economy. “In times like this, in times of crisis, in times of a serious situation in this country, it's not the time for parochial issues or individual jurisdictional issues. So my message in there was quite strong: It's one of co-operation and it's important to put a united front and solidarity for the people of Canada to be working together to get through this. If we're divided in that room, then that's going to destroy confidence in the Canadian public. I was quite pleased at the meeting. It was a very cordial meeting. It was a constructive meeting because a lot of good ideas came on the table.”

Equalization payments came up once during the session. Quebec brought it up. But though Williams has strong feelings about equalization — indeed, he blew his top and declared war on the Harper Tories over what he perceived to be a broken promise on commitments made to his province he bit his tongue during Monday's session.

“Given our special circumstances, I just didn't feel it was appropriate,” Williams told me.

Here's some of what he said later in a scrum with reporters:

I want to tell you quite frankly there was no tension in the room from my perspective and I want to tell you I didn't sense any tension from the prime minister. I think everybody was there acknowledging that, look, we're trying to find solutions to get through a hard time…

When it comes to working for the Canadian people to get us through this storm, we need to be together. There's also a general sense of comfort in the room, and I specifically expressed this to the prime minister, that I had a comfort in way the Canadian government, our Canadian government, is handling this problem, the fact that they have not been over-reactionary, it's been steady as she goes approach and they're coming up with solutions as they need them as opposed to being in a situation where they're just going to throw money at things and try and appease people.

So I'm comfortable with that. To go off to the G20, I think the prime minister has had a comfort level now knowing that Canadian premiers and leaders are generally with him….

There's nothing to be gained by me going into that room and attacking the prime minister or to bringing up old issues with the prime minister. I'm there today not only as the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador but as a Canadian leader, as one of 14 people in that room who basically are there to find solutions and answer for Canadians and make sure that ordinary Canadians had the confidence in their leadership. For me to go in and rant and rave about issues that are important to my province would not help Canada and quite frankly that was the tone in the room today and I felt quite comfortable when we finished up …

A reporter pointed out that, with no MPs from his province, there are no Newfoundlanders in the federal cabinet. In the last Parliament there were three MPs from Williams' province: Norman Doyle and Loyola Hearn from St. John's and Fabian Manning, also on the Avalon Peninsula. Hearn was the Fisheries Minister. But Hearn and Doyle retired and Manning — the lone Conservative incumbent standing for re-election in Nfld – succumbed to Williams ABC campaign. So Williams was asked if that was a problem:

Peter MacKay has been designated as the minister for Newfoundland and Labrador, but you know, all ministers are Canadian ministers, all ministers of the federal government should represent Newfoundland and Labrador to the best of their abilities. For example, the new minister of fisheries [Gail Shea] from Prince Edward Island, I have no doubt whatsoever that she will represent the interests of Newfoundland and Labrador to the best of her ability. You know, there's been an impression that we would be punished because we don't have a specific person at the cabinet table, that that'll work against us but I see federal ministers as Canadian ministers. I'm a Canadian and people in Newfoundland and Labrador are Canadian and we expect to be treated like Canadians.