A Hypothetical

From the Debates of the Bow-Wow Parliament for the past two sitting days, some of the most pathetic, flimsy excuses, from Danny's batch of barking trained seals, including Tom Rideout, LL.B., who well and truly knows better, to justify the appointment of the former President of The Party as Chief Electoral Officer:

MR TOM RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, the only - not only, I suppose - criticism that I have heard surface on this appointment is the fact that Mr. Reynolds had the good sense in his lifetime to be associated with a political party. Now, it happened to be the political party of which those of us on this side of the House are associated, and that, I think, is imminently good sense as well, but that really does not matter.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Reynolds has made a tremendous contribution to the public life of Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Reynolds has been a sterling member of the business community in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Mr. Reynolds has served his community and the people in the community where he lived, in the Province in general, in many, many volunteer capacities. Mr. Reynolds has done exemplary, as an individual serving his community in many, many ways, in many volunteer ways.

MR DAVE DENINE: Mr. Speaker, when I look at a position that a person holds, I look at that person and I will put it in my mind: Can that person do the job? Without hesitation, this person can do the job. Can he do it independent of all of government? Yes, he can. Can he put aside his bias? Yes, he can. He is a man of impeccable character, Mr. Speaker, impeccable character.

MR CLYDE JACKMAN: Indeed, Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure today to rise in support of this motion and of Mr. Reynolds moving into the position of Chief Electoral Officer.

I have to be honest, Mr. Speaker, I did not know Mr. Reynolds personally. I have heard certain things about him. Therefore, before I decided to get up and speak, I wanted to check as to Mr. Reynolds’ credentials, and so on and so forth.

A very important characteristic that I like to judge people on - certainly, there are two things. Qualifications is always a consideration when you are moving into a position of authority, but also I find it good to get impressions. Therefore, as I sought out certain things about Mr. Reynolds, I spoke to people who knew him. I guess, Mr. Speaker, when you speak to people one-on-one sometimes they are very much more apt to speak to you honestly than if they are in a larger group setting.

Some of the things that I heard about him: In his role as a volunteer, he was spoken of very highly as someone who gives energy and brings vibrancy to the positions that he got into. Those people I spoke to, spoke very highly of him in that regard. Equally, I heard about his role in municipal politics. I think the words that I heard would be dignity in which he carried out that role. Likewise, some of his business associates spoke very highly of him in that regard.

MR JOHN DINN: We talk about political affiliations! Where in this Province will you find somebody without political affiliations? Go around and knock on doors and say: Okay, now what is your political affiliation? Most people in Newfoundland have political affiliations. We are foolish to deny that they do. We are only fooling ourselves.

How far do you want to go with this idea of political affiliations? If you talk about it in this position here, are we going to also make it a condition of employment for all government jobs? What is fair for one should be fair for all. Most the civil servants who are here, even though they might not express it publicly, have political affiliations.

MR SHAWN SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few minutes, if I could, and explain why I believe Mr. Reynolds is a very capable and competent person for that position and why I feel he should be allowed to and should be able to hold the office.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know Mr. Reynolds on a personal level. I have met him. My colleague from Kilbride indicated earlier that he knew him through political circles, and that is sort of how I got to know Mr. Reynolds. I knew him as a business person. I knew that he was involved here in our community on a business level and I certainly knew him as well in terms of being a community person. So, he has a lot of involvement in the community. He has professional involvement, work related involvement and, apparently, for some reason, they believe that part of his community involvement, which happened to be supporting a particular political party, somehow disenfranchises him or should somehow disqualify him for this position.

Mr. Reynolds is a person who I believe has similar characteristics and similar attributes. I look at him for the skill set that he has. I look at him for the qualifications that he brings to the job. I look at him for the knowledge that he has. I look at his reputation. I speak to people in the community every day. I have spoken to people for many, many years in this community and Mr. Reynolds’s name and Mr. Reynolds’s character and Mr. Reynolds’s reputation have always come up. It has never come up as being a partisan person, it has never come up as being a political person, any more than it does about his religion. I do not know what religion the man is, and I do not care. It does not matter. What matters is that we get the best person possible to fulfill this job.

MR FELIX COLLINS: Now, we are not here today to discuss whether or not he is going to do his job in a non-partisan manner. That is a rather silly amendment to put before the motion. The fact that he has been appointed for this job - we are only concerned with his capability, his ability to do the job. It is implied in that, Mr. Speaker - his ability to do the job, he is going to do it in a non-partisan manner. There is no doubt in Mr. Reynolds’ capacity to be able to do this job. His reputation as an able administrator and community worker demonstrates true leadership characteristics. That is what we are looking for in this position, a well known and respected individual and professional who can handle this job and handle it very well.

MR PAUL ORAM: I can tell you now that when I look at this political appointment thing that they are talking about, every person in Newfoundland and Labrador - pretty well every person in Newfoundland and Labrador - has some association with some political party, and that is a fact; everyone does. I will go a little step further. I will say this: Every employee of government probably has some affiliation with some political party. That does not mean we are going to turn around and say: Oh, you cannot be appointed to a position within government. My goodness gracious, what kind of a mess would we have in this Province if we decided, because somebody had some particular political tendency, that we would not be able to have them be appointed to a particular place in government? That would be so foolish that we cannot even do that.

When you look at Mr. Reynolds’ resume - and, again, I think it was the Member for Placentia & St. Mary’s who actually spoke and said: This guy, Mr. Reynolds, came out and he actually sent his resume; he sent it over. He did not try to cover up that he was a particular member of the PC Party. He did not try to cover that up. He wrote it all here. He said it all, this is up front, I want to be up front with this. Absolutely, I was, no question about it.

So here's the hypothetical question.

What if, instead of Danny Williams', the government doing the appointing in this case was that of "Steve" Harper?

And what if, instead of Paul Reynolds, the partisan Tory named Reynolds being appointed as Chief Electoral Officer was John Reynolds?

What then would Danny Williams have to say about Loyola Hearn, Norm Doyle, or Fabian Manning making the same kind of trained-seal, speaking-note, weak justifications for this shameful appointment, that his favourite caucus sycophants have during made the past two sittings?

Are things really so bad in Dannystan that no one is willing to call Danny Williams out on this?