Polls were for dogs (V)

Real Leadership is not governing by polls but it is listening and responding to all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

- The Word of Our Dan, 2000

MR. SKINNER: Where did those policies come from? They came from the strategies that the member opposite talks about. Where did those strategies come from? They came from talks with the people in the Province. They came from Shawn Skinner, the Member for St. John’s Centre, going out and speaking to small business people in his district and speaking to community based groups and speaking to homeowners and speaking to young men and women, students, and moms and dads, in my district, making sure that the grassroots were being listened to and heard and bringing that back to the table of caucus and bringing that back to the table of Cabinet. I am not the only one doing that. I would suggest every member in this House is doing it – not just the members on government side, but every member in the House is doing this. It shows because the indicators show we are doing well, and it shows because those polls that nobody likes to talk about when they are not favourable to themselves, but those polls that people put out, those independent, arbitrary outside agencies – they are not government polls – say that we are a popular government, and we are popular because of the policies we have. I would like to think it is because we are nice people too, and I am sure some people think we are, but it is our performance that is getting those poll numbers, Mr. Speaker. It is not the individuals, although in some cases we have some impact on that. We certainly have some role in that, no doubt, but it is the performance of government. If people were not happy with the performance of government, you would not see the kinds of poll numbers that you are seeing for this government. So people are happy with how we are doing because we are listening to them, we are taking their advice, we are listening to the grassroots, putting it into the strategies that we have, and those strategies are impacting the policies of this government.