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17 March 2011

Anyone seen John Hickey?

Our man in Menihek.

The Pavement Putin of the Permafrost.

Currently the Labrador affairs minister and reputedly wannabe Conservative candidate in the next federal election.

Well, he may not be seen anywhere other than the A&W in Goose Bay for breakfast but certainly no one has heard from him on a CBC story that the Department of National Defence isn’t interested in spending any more cash on sustaining the infrastructure at Goose Bay beyond what they need.

Funny that Hickey is so silent.  In 2006, for example he was adamant that the fine people of Goose Bay could count on the promises of his political pals in Ottawa.  Here’s what he said in the House of Assembly in April 2006:

Although there was some fearmongering [sic] going around the community and there were some moments there last week when people were not really sure, I want to commend the new Minister of National Defence, Minster Gordon O’Connor, for coming out publicly on Monday morning and reconfirming the commitment that he made to the people of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, that he made recently to Premier Williams in Ottawa, and the commitment that Prime Minister Harper made to our Province in a letter that he wrote to the Premier during the election. The commitment is there, Mr. Speaker, it is solid, 650 troops on the ground. We are going to see an army base there with  an extra 100 support troops for a UAV squadron. This is fantastic news, Mr. Speaker, for the Town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay and for the
District of Lake Melville.

Fantastic news of the glories to be delivered onto the fine people of the Big Land by John’s Big Friends.

Anything to the contrary was fear-mongering.

Five years later?

Fantastical nothingness.

In fact, the likelihood of the federal Conservatives delivering even the promise to promise something vaguely like they’ve been promising is so remote at this point that some of the local movers and shakers in Labrador are thinking about trying to press the federal Conservatives for the loan guarantee on Muskrat in lieu of the numerous lavish and thus far unfulfilled pledges to bring riches to Goose Bay via National Defence.

- srbp -