Now that Tom Rideout is gone, another cabinet minister has been afflicted with the strange tendency to confuse time.
In this case, it is justice minister Tom Marshall and the confusion is over how long the Green bill was debated in the legislature. Marshall issued a news release on Wednesday weighing into the controversy over an eight percent salary hike given to members of the province’s legislature in July.
This compensation is clearly laid out in the act which was widely debated and reported upon by the media at the time of its passing.
Widely debated?
Try a portion of one day’s sitting right at the end of the spring session in 2007. The thing was whipped through the House of Assembly so fast a great many details of it were not revealed to the public.
Like the fact that the spending limits and other provisions didn’t take effect until after the fall 2007 general election.
Neither aspect was discussed at the time, nor was there much public discussion of the appointment of the salary commission that was set to work holding public hearings while most people in the province were caught up with summer vacations and other such stuff.
Old habits die hard, and some - like the inability to tell time – die even harder.
-srbp-
