An infuriated Premier Danny Williams has challenged Newfoundland and Labrador's Liberal leader to repeat outside the legislature comments he made about Williams's private-sector experience.

Opposition Leader Gerry Reid spoke Tuesday about how much money Williams made in the private sector, and when he sold Cable Atlantic before entering politics. 

Danny Williams said Liberal attacks on government support of a fibre optic deal have turned personal.
(CBC)

Reid made the crack, however, when his microphone had been turned off. Williams yelled back he would "sue your ass" if Reid made the comments outside the legislature, which he challenged him to do.

Remarks made inside the house of assembly are protected by parliamentary privilege. That privilege, though, is not extended to interviews politicians give just outside.

"If they disparage my reputation, if they say anything that's untrue or inaccurate and they say it outside the house, I will personally take action against them," Williams told reporters Tuesday.

"I'm not going to allow them to destroy my reputation."

Reid has led an Opposition assault against the government over its plans to spend $15 million on a fibre-optic network that has ties to two of Williams's former business associates. 

Gerry Reid asked Williams whether he was personally involved in the fibre optic approval.
(CBC)

In particular, Reid has vigorously questioned what role Williams himself played in approving government participation in the project, particularly in light of an external report that he said contradicts government claims of the deal's benefits.

Reid focused on the premier's close ties to Dean MacDonald, chief executive officer of Persona Communications, who formerly worked for Williams at Cable Atlantic and who remains a director of a company in the premier's blind trust.

"It's becoming quite obvious now who Dean MacDonald spoke with [in government]," Reid told the house.

"All we need to know now is when and where he spoke to the premier. Maybe the premier will tell us what golf course he was on when he talked to Dean about this?"

Deal assailed as cronyism

Persona formed a consortium with Rogers Communications and MTS Allstream to submit a $52-million proposal to construct a fibre-optic network that will compete with an existing system run by Bell Aliant.

The Liberals have called the deal cronyism, noting that Ken Marshall, a Rogers vice-president, also worked for Williams at Cable Atlantic.

Consortium representatives met with provincial officials about a dozen times over the past year and a half.

While MacDonald attended four of those meetings, Williams attended none.

Williams said the Liberals are resorting to gutter politics.

"I'm really annoyed because they either don't understand this at all or otherwise they're doing it for completely personal reasons," Williams said.

Spinoffs will be enormous: Williams

In the legislature, Williams said the deal was approved for business reasons alone. Apart from the expectation of a sharp drop in access costs, Williams said the project will generate $120 million in jobs and $20 million in resulting taxes.

He said a competing network will lead to other benefits, but "it is not possible to quantify the benefits exactly because the number is so huge and so enormous that you cannot quantify it. It is in the hundreds, and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars," Williams told the legislature.

Reid, meanwhile, is scheduled to introduce a private member's bill Wednesday to call for an independent examination of the deal.

Earlier this month, governing Progressive Conservatives on the legislature's public accounts committee shut down a committee investigation of the deal.