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

But on Monday, at their first meeting since the election, Williams declared that period of acrimony is passed, and even had good things to say about the job Ottawa is doing to deal with the crisis. This, of course, from a man who referred 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 economies. "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." More...