Finding fault

The ink was barely dry on the Green report before Danny's Plants were lighting up the airwaves and the internets with their avant lui, le déluge revisionist history.

From the VOCM Question of the Day, a brief sampling:

Don: "If it was not for Danny Williams, this mess would never have been cleaned up. Thank you Danny for helping protect my tax dollars from the Liberals."

General Lumpfish: "Way to go Premier Williams and Team! You are continuing to clean up the mess left by years of Liberal corruption."

Brian: "Yes, I support it completely. As usual, the Tories are left to clean up the mess left behind by the previous Liberal government. I'm sure the premier will do an excellent job here. It's time for the Liberal party to take responsibility and apologize to the people of NL for their role in creating this situation."

Fair Share: "Hats off to Danny Williams for cleaning up something that has been there for years in the reign of both past Liberal and P.C. governments."

Stella: "thank goodness this gov't lead by Mr. Williams is cleaning up the mess not only in the House of Assembly but in the province as a whole."

There's just one pesky problem with the thesis that Danny Williams, Glorious Leader, is cleaning up a mess bequeathed to him by the Grimes and Tobin governments, or at least solely by them.

It's not factual.

Check out this chart, lifted from p. 3-19 of the Green Report, copyright warning notwithstanding (infringement suit welcome):

As Mr. Justice Green writes on the same page on which the chart appears:

No conclusion can be drawn from this analysis other than that, for the last number of years, the “revised” expenditure projections for the MHAs’ Allowances and Assistance account, reported in the estimates tabled in the House with the budget, have underestimated the amount that was actually spent. The extent of the difference has been most pronounced in 2004-05 and 2005-06, when the ultimate variances from the revised estimates reported to the House were in the order of $500,000.

[Emphasis added.]

In 2004-05, and 05-06, the Speaker of the House, the majority of the House of Assembly and of the membership of the Internal Economy Commission, the Premier and his cabinet, were all Progressive Conservatives, not Liberals, Dippers, or Communists.

And, as the graph very clearly shows, the "variance" between what was spent in Allowances and Assistance, and what was budgeted, got progressively worse during the Danny Williams years, and even blew the previous record for overspending — that recorded in 1999 — out of the water.

Two years running.

It is true that, to the extent that the spending scandal stems from decisions made during the Tobin and Grimes years, the current House of Assembly and current government are left to clean it up.

But it is equally true that they are cleaning up their own mess, too.

Funny, though, how a government, and its designated, talking-point armed apologists, for all their pretty rhetoric about "autonomy", "responsible government", and "standing on our own two feet", are so keen, whenever an opportunity presents itself, to shift the blame.

You would think the provincial motto, or at least the PC Party one, should be replaced with "Nobis non est lapsus."

"Through no fault of our own."