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When I received Don’t Tell the Newfoundlanders, I was eager to read what new insights Greg Malone would bring to the issue of Newfoundland’s entrance into the Canadian family in 1949. of course, the thesis of his book is not new. Other writers have covered the subject, including S.J.R. Noel, Peter Neary, Bren Walsh, and John Edward FitzGerald, to name a few.

I suspect few other provinces have as high a percentage of their people who could tell you when that province joined Canada as one will find in Newfoundland and Labrador. The independence Newfoundland enjoyed for many decades because of geography and as a Dominion has caused the people of Canada’s tenth province to reflect often on its past. Just recently, at a signing of my own book, I was confronted with a very elderly gentleman who was proud to proclaim that he was an anti–Confederate and had always viewed my politics as closely resembling those of a Newfoundland nationalist.

So it was with great interest that I began Malone’s book. Overall, I was disappointed. While the book succeeds in bringing together the threads of evidence that support his contention of Anglo–Canadian collusion as it relates to Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation (something Walsh did in his book, More than a Poor Majority), Malone does this in a manner that detracts from his contention. His book comes across almost as a rant, straining to prove the point. It would have been more appropriate for there to be more context, allowing for a more complete book — although, admittedly, a little longer one.

Malone’s attack on the findings of the 1933 Amulree Commission leaves one with the impression that good governance was the norm in Newfoundland politics during the early decades of the twentieth century. It is true that global economic forces played a large role in Newfoundland’s condition in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and that the commission’s report often erroneously disparaged the place and its people. Yet one should not gloss over the unfortunate record of governance by the leaders of successive Newfoundland governments of this period, beginning with the railway deal of the 1890s and continuing into the twentieth century with the massive giveaways that allowed for the construction of the paper mills in Grand Falls and Corner Brook, all the time without a clear and steady focus on the fishery.

There are also problems in Don’t Tell the Newfoundlanders with a lack of appropriate validation of statements. For example, Malone says, “The Canadians wrote off the entire $5.6 billion war debt that Great Britain owed,” but he offers no supporting reference. In another example, he cites the opinion of one senator who alleges the Maritimes lost as a result of Confederation — hardly convincing evidence or substantial argument.

Then there are the exaggerations and errors that appear near the end of the book, where he provides hyperbolic statements — such as that there was “virtually no residual benefit from Labrador for Newfoundland” regarding iron ore — and unsubstantiated figures in the billions of dollars regarding the value of Upper Churchill hydroelectric power.

Malone also makes several mistakes when discussing the 1985 Atlantic Accord. He says it was then federal Justice Minister John Crosbie and I who negotiated this historic document. It was not. This accord was negotiated by teams of officials under the leadership of Energy Minister Pat Carney for the federal government and provincial Energy Minister William Marshall for Newfoundland, both of whom reported to and received instructions from their first ministers (Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and myself).

Most glaring is Malone’s suggestion that “substantial material change did not come to the Island until Premier Danny Williams was driven on December 23, 2004, to take down the Canadian flag in the Newfoundland legislative building in his fight with Ottawa to give the province more of its offshore oil revenues.” Obviously, Malone has not read the Atlantic Accord; nor has he consulted people who were involved in its formulation. Without the accord, Williams would have been unable to negotiate the acceleration of revenues (for which he deserves credit). But the bulk of revenues — over $8 billion in just the last four years — comes directly from the accord because of its provision that royalties flow to the province from offshore in the same manner as if the oil and gas were on land.

Malone forgets as well about other provisions of the Atlantic Accord that have been of benefit to Newfoundlanders. What began as real promise — somewhat like Newfoundland in the middle of the nineteenth century — becomes as one reads it a narrow book with little context and lacking the necessary research. Malone says he went to Toronto as a Canadian and returned a Newfoundlander. Some in the province may therefore be puzzled that his book is published by a “Canadian” firm.