With his unadulterated boosterism for Cape Breton with boondoggles such as the heavy water plants and creating Devco that was a rest home for the Liberal Party he put Cape Breton on the road to ruin. Instead of investing in long term productive enterprises he only considered short term vote buying measures. The same principles were applied when he was Minister of Finance that took best part of twenty years to recover from. He was well aided by his master Trudeau in this economic ruin enterprise and left the instruction book for Trudeau junior to read.