Contrary to what some may believe, your humble e-scribbler has a lot of time for Loyola Hearn. [left, why is that finger sticking out? Photo: Greg Locke].Hearn is an experienced and capable politician who has shown, over the years, that he can take and give a punch.
Danny Williams could take a few lessons from the wily fellow from Renews.
Once in a while, though, Hearn displays the kind of chutzpah that only a veteran could risk and keep a straight face.
Like Friday, for example, when Hearn issued a statement from his ministerial office tackling Liberal member of parliament Scott Simms for his little stunt about German boar hunting as a retaliation for a likely German Bundestag bill that will ban the importation of Canadian seal products:
Even today's motion plays directly into the hands of the anti-seal hunt movement. Instead of defending the hunt's standards, and putting forward the facts that the hunt is both humane AND sustainable, the message Simms is putting forward via the media seems to be "At least, we're not as bad as so-and-so."
Simms has fallen into the activists' trap and his irrational reaction can only hurt our argument regarding sustainable and humane hunts for a multitude of species. We will work with the EU on ensuring their members' hunts - including Germany's deer and wild boar hunt - are at least as sustainable and humane as our seal hunt.
Part of cabinet minister Hearn's problem has less to do with Simms' lack of input on legislation and much more to do with the fact that Simms [right Photo: Greg Locke] is taking a leaf from opposition politician Hearn's playbook. Simms is being extraordinarily successful when it comes to gaining popular support in Newfoundland and Labrador for his little escapade. Radio talk shows over the past few days have been filled with callers praising Simms' initiative.Hearn is incommunicado, apparently, but that is really his own call or that of his comms people.
Hearn meanwhile is left with issuing this statement - days after the story broke - that commits to working with the European Union blah blah blah. It's hardly as dramatic. It's hardly the stuff to get you interviewed on Newsworld. It's hardly the stuff that made the name "Loyola Hearn" a legend among the crowd on Open Line.
That is, before he went from being Mister Hearn to Minister Hearn.
Hearn went off the chutzpah scale - he long ago fried the Bond Papers' Cred-o-Meter - though with his last comment:
What sort of credibility do they think they'll have the next time their party says that they want to seriously deal with issues in the fishery?Let's just say that the Liberals will have as much credibility as Hearn. This is the guy after all who made a huge deal about having his party declare its unequivocal, unflinching and irrevocable policy that, should it form a government, it would immediately take control of international waters outside the 200 mile exclusive economic zone and manage fisheries in the region in a form called custodial management.
Hearn [left. Official ministerial portrait] took great pride in a private members motion on the issue in 2004 and earned accolades from his provincial brethren for his efforts. Hearn used to rail against NAFO, the international fisheries association, claiming it was dead, useless and any other negative adjective he could think of.That was before he became the fish minister.
Scarcely a month after being sworn to the Privy Council and getting the ministerial car and driver to boot, Hearn was pledging his unwavering support for exactly the policies he used to condemn. NAFO was getting better, said the guy who declared it dead. This wasn't much of a surprise to Bond Papers' readers, though. They had seen the unmistakable signs here, here, here. Heck just go back to the archives and read anything on Hearn between December 2005 and March 2006.
Hearn's credibility is likely to take a severe blow with his statement today on Simms' boar war. It was a noteworthy gaffe from a crafty old politician who, until now, has been able to avoid answering for the discrepancies between the old Loyola and the new one.
It's easier to do that when you avoid interviews. For some reason, though, Loyola decided to stick his head up on this one today with a pissy statement. Maybe the rumours are true.
Maybe something does happen to you when you get to be a regional minister from Newfoundland with a thing about fish.