Dwight Ball country’s newest premier, Liberals win in Newfoundland and Labrador

DEER LAKE, N.L. – On the last night of Newfoundland and Labrador’s election campaign, Dwight Ball got some advice from his mother.

He became emotional as he recalled his childhood and the conversation with his 81-year-old mother, who told the man who became the province’s premier-designate on Monday night not to forget about his riding of Humber-Gros Morne.

“She said, ‘Just go out and make sure you work hard today and win this district,’” said Ball as he voted at a local Roman Catholic church in Deer Lake, not far from the school he said he walked an hour to attend as a boy.

Ball added that his mother doesn’t hesitate to let her views be known when he or his siblings visit. He also listens carefully to what she has to say.

“She’s at an age where being the most stubborn person you meet is a huge asset,” he said.

Ball, 58, led the Liberals to a majority government in Monday’s election.

He describes himself as coming from modest means, raised in Deer Lake on the western edge of Newfoundland with his three brothers and a sister. His father worked in the forestry industry.

He went to pharmacy school in St. John’s at the age of 17 and after graduation he returned to Deer Lake, where he franchised a pharmacy and acquired another in nearby Springdale before going on to operate a personal care home and a retirement community for seniors, employing a couple of hundred people.

In his spare time, Ball enjoys salmon fishing, plays hockey and has taken up snowshoeing. He and his wife Sharon have a daughter, Jade.

Ball is more low-key than some of Newfoundland and Labrador’s more famous politicians. On the campaign trail, he doesn’t reach the rhetorical heights that made premiers like Danny Williams and Brian Tobin national figures on the country’s political stage.

Ball became leader of the province’s Liberal party two years ago in a contest between five candidates that took three ballots. He mostly ran against the Tories in the leadership contest, accusing the government of being arrogant and lacking accountability after it tightened the province’s access-to-information law.

He inherited a party that was ahead in public opinion polls but wasn’t a dominant force in the legislature after it won six out of 48 seats in the 2011 provincial election, becoming the official Opposition by finishing just one seat ahead of the NDP, which grabbed a bigger share of the popular vote than the Liberals.

But the aftermath of an NDP caucus revolt saw two of its members join the Liberals. The size of Ball’s caucus also grew when two Tories crossed the floor to join the Liberal party. When this election began, the Liberals had all the political momentum, having won six successive byelections as well.

At the time of one of the defections to his party more than two years ago, Ball downplayed criticism that the Liberals were being opportunistic at the expense of their principles.

“We’re not a zebra party,” he said.

“What we have here are core values within the Liberal party and people are attracted to that.”

Ball takes office as Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy is faltering because of a drop in oil prices affecting an offshore energy sector that helped the province climb out of “have-not” status not that long ago.

Faced with a deficit forecast at more than $1 billion in 2015-16, Ball has promised to increase government revenue through economic diversification, something his political opponents have dismissed as an illusion.

He is also promising to scrap Tory plans in January for a two percentage point hike in the harmonized sales tax, arguing it would stunt economic growth by taking money out of consumers’ pockets.