If the members of the House of Assembly vote to accept the reports from two statutory officers as presented they will have to accept that Chris Mitchelmore committed an act that does not rise to any reasonable definition of gross mismanagement.
If they accept that he has committed such an act, then they must accept he did it alone despite evidence that others are at the very least equally culpable.
Then they must also accept that the punishment for such an offence is far below the standard one ought to expect.
And in the process, they will endorse reports that are, by any reasonable measure, far below the standards that should come from an office as important as that of the Citizen’s Representative and that of the Commissioner of Legislative Standards.
The conventionally
wise were conventionally outraged by two
reports released on Monday about how Carla Foote got her job at The Rooms.
None of the
reports told us anything of substance about the whole business that we didn’t know
before. Dwight Ball wanted Carla Foote
in a new job and Chris Mitchelmore obliged by fixing up a spot at The Rooms. That did not stop the Chorus from moaning,
wailing, and bunching up their tighty whities at this unprecedently extreme,
unusual, and hitherto unknown display of corruption unseen in this place before
now.
Unknown,
that is since the last crowd got punted from office in 2015. Truth is, by example of politics in
Newfoundland and Labrador between 2003 and 2015, Mitchelmore ought to be ashamed at himself
for falling so far short of the standard
of corruption represented by the
appointments of cabinet ministers’ bedmates, hacks, and failed candidates to
all manner of jobs far more influential than directing advertising for the provincial
museum and art gallery. In those heady
days, the legendary A.B. Morine, looking
up from the warmer climes in which he is spending Eternity, could be heard on
especially still nights slow-clapping his approval from the old House of
Assembly as his heirs on The Hill bested his century-old record time and again.
Yes, Dwight
Ball promised to stop this sort of thing, but so too did Danny Williams, gone
from office now these nine years this week.
Williams’ parting act was to try and put his future wife onto the
offshore board. He failed but not before a few
people - in and out of government - embarrassed
themselves in some pretty spectacular ways.
Even Williams’ shag-ups are legendary.
And yes,
they both deserved to be pummeled for making promises they knew or ought to
have known they would not keep.
But the
thing that people should be concerned about in this is more than hypocrisy. They should read the two reports released on
Monday and ask many more questions that are every bit as troubling as the way
the Premier and his administration moved the Assistant Secretary to Cabinet to from
one part of the public service to a Crown corporation.
