It's always interesting to watch opinions evolve on spending in the House of Assembly prior to October of this year:
1. November 29, "Piggies at the trough"
2. December 17, "Telegram uncovers more special arrangements":
The House of Assembly has come along way in the past year. It is a shame that such a fundamental and common sense change could not have been adopted a long time ago.
3. December 19, "Personal responsibility" which reproduces the Telegram editorial in its entirety and ends with the comment:
It is fairly reflective of my opinion expressed back on November 29th.
Once again hats of to the Tely.
4. Then a mere 24 hours later, under the title "It's all in the eyes of the beholder" this:
If Deputy Premier Tom Rideout had permission from the House of Assembly, and thus a special arrangement, to claim for accommodations in Lewisporte, then what has he done wrong? The accommodations exist, permission was granted to claim a legitimate expense, and he has done nothing illegal.
Many things are in the eye of the beholder. Beauty for one, but there is little of beauty in the administration of the House of Assembly accounts between 1996 and 2006.
Things that were once clearly wrong to some people become perhaps a little less obviously wrong or maybe right and wrong or maybe something.
To quote from the Telegram a section that apparently missed the eye of at least one beholder:
House rules in effect at the time barred MHAs from charging taxpayers the cost of renting a home or apartment in their district — no matter who they rented it from.
Perhaps, though, this comment from a Telegram story prompted the sudden change of views:
From my own perspective, I’m not going to sit down and pass judgment on every single member — whether they’re NDP or Liberal or PC or anybody else — every single time the press decides that there’s a question here of whether this was proper spending of money or not.
Perhaps the caps lock was off on a couple of letters in that last post title.
-srbp-