On Thursday, Williams told a business audience in Toronto that it's "self-respect" that Canada's easternmost province seeks in its continuing battle over natural resource development.
"It's not separation that we crave, but respect. Self-respect builds self-confidence, self-determination, and self-reliance, economically and socially," he said.
It will be impossible to win that respect until the rest of the country, particularly the national media, gets rid of its "xenophobic attitudes," Williams added.
"When the federal money went to Quebec to facilitate tax cuts, the story was still about Newfoundland and Labrador whining and complaining," he told the audience during a breakfast speech.
"When we as a province implement tax cuts with the lowest rates in Atlantic Canada, on our own merit and our own financial responsibility, they do not bother to report that to the rest of the country."
Newfoundland and Labrador is still significantly worse off economically than any other province in the country, he said. Its per capita debt expense is twice that of the next worse-off province, its per capita disposable income is the lowest in the country, and its unemployment rate is the highest at 14.8 per cent compared to 6.3 per cent nationally.
That leaves the Rock between a rock and a hard place as it needs equalization payments to meet the demand for public services, said Williams, who added the province needs to develop natural resources - such as offshore oil and gas deposits, uranium, and nickel - to kick-start its economy.
Unfortunately, said Williams, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's failure to keep a promise to remove non-renewable resource revenues from the equalization formula has made that impossible.
"We are truly in a catch-22 situation, where we cannot escape fiscal dependency without developing these resources," he said. "Yet if we develop them the benefits will be clawed away from us so that we will never be able to use them to escape fiscal dependency."
Under the most recent federal budget, provinces that receive transfer payments under the federal-provincial equalization program were given a choice between the old formula, which excluded revenues from oil and gas but not from other non-renewable resources, and a new formula, which included 50 per cent of resource revenues.
Williams, who immediately denounced the move, refused to change his tune Thursday as he argued that Harper broke his promise and that all Canadians should beware.
"You may not agree with my position, and maybe you don't agree with the promise that Stephen Harper made to our province, but that doesn't change the fact that he made that promise, he broke that promise, and you could be next," he said.
"Let our experience be a lesson to all Canadians."
Harper has argued that his equalization formula was a compromise that meets the needs of all provinces.
