20 November 2013

The Old Fraudsters #nlpoli

There’s no greater fraud,  former Premier Danny Williams once said, than a promise not kept.

In the House of Assembly on Monday,  his successor claimed that Conservatives “do as we say.”  Premier Kathy Dunderdale was making a dig at opposition leader Dwight Ball over his leadership campaign expenses.

That’s a rather dubious claim of moral superiority in light of commitments the Conservatives made in 2003 about campaign expenses.

As SRBP told you in July, then-opposition leader Danny Williams made a solemn commitment to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that  - if elected – the Conservatives would introduce sweeping reforms of the House of Assembly and election finances.  The changes were supposed to include entirely new rules about party leadership contests.

Williams said that the public was losing confidence in elected officials.  He said it was one of the greatest challenges facing elected governments.c  His package of reforms was supposed to correct that.

And once in office, Danny Williams and Kathy Dunderdale did exactly nothing to deliver on their solemn commitments to reform election finance laws.

They didn’t even try.

So the next time Kathy Dunderdale and the Conservatrives pretend they are better than everyone else when it comes to being accountable and to delivering on promises, let's just let Let Danny Williams’ own words describe him and his former colleagues for what they are.

-srbp-