N.L. premier to resign, MP confirms

 Postmedia News November 25, 2010 6:20 AM

Premier Danny Williams will announce his resignation Thursday morning, says Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Gerry Byrne, the MP for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte.  Williams was elected premier of the Atlantic Province in 2003.  Earlier this year, the premier made headlines by travelling to Florida for heart surgery, setting off a storm of cross-border debate on the merits of Canadian health care verses the private American system.  "My arteries are clear. It was a valve issue for me. Mine was leaking and the seeping went from moderate to severe all of a sudden," he told Postmedia's Don Martin this spring.
Williams has soared to a level of personal popularity never before experienced by most in provincial politics. One poll this spring gave him 93 per cent voter approval in a legislature where his Progressive Conservative's 43 seats dominate a combined opposition just one-tenth the size. Williams is known as a political scrapper and once demanded Newfoundlanders vote Anything But Conservative (ABC) in 2008, which produced a resounding shutout for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.