Premier Danny Williams didn't look very refreshed from his extended southern vacation when he faced questions in the House of Assembly.
In fact, he looked as pinched an angry as he usually does when he doesn't have absolute control over an issue.
Monday's Hansard is online and it makes fascinating reading. Too bad there isn't video to go with it. overall, Danny Williams played two roles, that of defence lawyer to government and as witness.
He's done the defence lawyer thing before on other scandals and crises. The big difference in this case is that he's also acting as his own lawyer for some of it. you can tell those parts because they contain lots of explanations of how tough the job is, how many messages they get in the run of a day - this will be important in a second - all the righteous indignation and the best rage he can muster.
That's the bit where he raised what is colloquial known as a red herring. Others may know it as a non sequitur, an unrelated bit of stuff. Ross Wiseman did it last week, likely on direction from the senior Crown counsel in Florida. The counsel took up the line himself yesterday talking about an internal memo on the health labs that we know from the evidence presented thus far, never made it out of Eastern Health.
The two are completely different, though. Williams ties that earlier situation with his own situation where his office knew about the problems apparently before the minister did. The idea of such a tactic - the non sequitur - is to muddy the waters a bit, to raise reasonable doubt where there may not be reasonable doubt on the face of it. Defence lawyers are good at raising doubt and Williams gave it his best shot yesterday.
The lawyer/premier portion of the pre-inquiry testimony also included the now-standard "Get Out of jail Free" card: Danny Williams will take personal responsibility for anything done or undone, except for illegal acts. In other words, your job is safe. Don't worry about the public criticism of your actions or anything else, for that matter, you will have a job. He used it when Tom Rideout was revealed to have been renting a house in Lewisporte contrary to House spending rules at the time. It reminds people, though, that the ethical benchmark for the Williams administration is far as far can be from what they thought they were voting for in 2003.
In other places, Williams is giving evidence, as a witness. It's sort of like pre-discovery since Williams is speaking on the public record but before he testifies for real, under oath before the Cameron Inquiry. That's the part where Williams' memory of a very significant event fails utterly.
It's a problem that seems evident already with John Ottenheimer.
"I cannot remember...". I have no recollection.
That doesn't mean it didn't happen, he reassures; it only means he can't recall.
And that's where the busy-ness of the office comes in. In the sequence, it came after the failed memory, but the purpose is obvious: it sets up the explanation for the failed memory in a fashion which is plausible even if some are already dismissing it as improbable.
It is context, to be sure and potentially relevant context, but it is a form of defence that is bound to come back again and again right up until the time the Premier responds to the subpoena he'll almost surely receive to give evidence at the inquiry.
It also reduces serious government business to the same status as other less serious stuff. Likening the first word of the breast cancer thing to remembering on what specific day he attended the swearing-in of a back bench MHA is an example of that. Clayton Forsey - the guy who got mentioned likely because he won Roger Grimes' old seat - is not a routine thing but compared to the scandal, we pretty much all are.
There's plausible denial and plausible explanation and reasonable doubt.
Then there's beggaring credulity, let alone the imagination.
For those who do not know, your humble e-scribbler worked for seven years in the Premier's Office. It is a busy place. The pressure can be intense at times. But the huge volume of information flowing through the office and the busy nature of the place is why the Premier has a staff. Not just two or three people but a dozen or more, depending on the administration. There are others in the government offices, especially in the Executive Council, who are busy too but whose job is, in part, to assist the Premier in discharging his responsibilities.
Their job is to filter information and any competent Premier relies on a competent staff, a staff that can tell the difference between the request for a birthday message for Aunt Minnie who just turned 100 years of age or a congrats letter for the local basketball team from word that as many as 1500 people may be affected by something going on in the local health authority. The first two wouldn't cross the premier's desk, typically.
The last one? It would cross his desk, flash on his e-mail screen, come through the telephone, or be subject to a verbal briefing from the senior staff - chief of staff and director of communications - if not all three. Given the evidence presented thus far at the Cameron Inquiry, the Eastern Health issue was certainly at that level of concern. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been flashed to the most senior bureaucrat in the government and, around the same time, to the two most senior officials in the Premier's Office. People passing that information - senior and with Queen's Park experience, like say Carolyn Chaplin - would expect that the information was passed to The Boss without undue delay.
Those e-mails, entered already as evidence, are warnings of a significant issue. They are both understandable and evidence of people who know their jobs well.
A subsequent e-mail from Chaplin warned that the issue was now not as urgent as earlier understood. It is most emphatically not - and let us be absolutely clear on this - a direction to stand down. The afternoon e-mail from Chaplin is not an Emily Litella admonition to "never mind".
To be clear on the point, let's quote two e-mails in their entirety. First, there is one from the assistant secretary to cabinet for social policy to the Clerk of the Executive Council:
»> Gary Cake 7/19/2005 10:32 AM »>
Robert!
Carolyn Chaplin just called from RCS to provide a heads up that a major story will break from the Eastern Health Board as early as this Thursday! but more likely next Monday.
The Eastern Health Board has recently discovered errors in its breast cancer testing program. This matter affects clients who were subject to breast cancer testing from 1997 to April! 2004. I understand that an estimated 1200 to 1500 clients will need to be retested. The Eastern Health Board is currently working on a strategy for communicating this news to affected clients and the public at large. Legal advice is being engaged in this process.
HCS will be advised of the communications strategy.
briefing note is currently being prepared.
Carolyn has also alerted Elizabeth to this matter.
The first sentence conveys the urgency of the issue: this is significant and may become public a mere two days hence. 19 July was a Tuesday. He then describes the issue, concisely, as it was then understood. He also discusses the standard responses: drafting of a communications strategy, engagement of legal counsel and preparation of a briefing note for the minister and presumably the whole cabinet including the Premier. The last sentence advises that the Premier's communications director was also aware.
Now, let's look at Chaplin's e-mail about four hours later:
From: Chaplin, Carolyn
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 2:37 PM
To: Cake, Gary
Cc: Abbott, John G. [deputy health minister]
Subject: Re: Update - Eastern Health Matter
Further to this morning and incoming information this afternoon, no action is required at
this time. We have arranged a briefing with the health authority for the latter part of
this week and will be in a better position to forward relevant briefing materials at that
time. No public announcement will be forthcoming this week and there is a possibility that
the significance of any announcement will be minimized.
Carolyn Chaplin
Director of Communications
Health and Community Services
The first sentence advises that no action is required, but only "at this time." It then describes, generally, the reason for the reduced urgency. Not eliminated urgency - as in "stand down" - but reduced urgency: "No public announcement will be forthcoming this week...", but more information will follow.
In other words, things are not going to happen on Thursday. Instead, action has been delayed pending a briefing from the health authority at which time the department would be better able to advise higher authorities of the issue and possible actions.
Take a look at the actual words and you see something dramatically different from the way the Premier has characterised it and the way other officials have described it.
Danny Williams' performance in the House of Assembly yesterday was of the type we've come to expect of him when he's under pressure: excited, full of threats and admonitions of caution. He played many roles, consistent with the varied roles he has in this matter. He covered many bases, some of them quite well.
The political problem for Williams is that for the first time in his administration, he cannot control the flow of information and the interpretation of events. That is the major political problem he faces. If he is as agitated on the first day, it will be fascinating to see if he can sustain that intensity and if his version of events stands up to scrutiny.
That will determine the future of his tenure as Premier.
-srbp-
