The Week’s Toppers: May 17-21

For those who missed them, here are the top 10 individual posts at Bond Papers for the past five days:

1. The World the Old Man Lives In (with larger picture) 
2. Reach for the Screech
3. Tail-gunner Bob:  equality is not a “realistic philosophy”
4. Protocols of the Elders of Laurentia
5. Cartoon U (might not be what you think it’s about, mainlanders)
6. Buchans Saga Deepens:  Johnson claims credit for Abitibi Work
7. All we want is fairity
8. The Old Man defines The Solution
9. Tie:  Resting on his laurels and hardys and Lower Churchill:  Imaginary Project. Imaginary news Stories.

Some of these were one day wonders.  Kevin O’Brien’s masterpiece of political hara kiri took  the idea of “fairity” to number one with a guffaw but that was just on the day it appeared.

Ditto Charlene Johnson and her nonsense about Buchans.

The Lower Churchill post – tied for number nine – is one that is still drawing hits a week or so after it first appeared.

This week, the Premier and his wing man managed to score a series of multi-day hits.  The Premier’s contemptible effort to scapegoat the people of an entire province and his despicable use of language in the process scored multiple hits over multiple days.

By far and away the biggest was the chart in “The World the Old Man Lives In”.  Sometimes things just line up right:  there was no way of knowing that was the day he would chose for his appalling display.  But it fit and it resonated with readers like very little else ever has.

Here’s the way your humble e-scribbler put it in a comment on one of the posts:

When political leaders attempt to smear entire groups of people based on their ethnicity or language, to use them as scapegoats then we are headed for a very dangerous place.

We have already seen too much of this sort of extremist language - "traitor" and "quisling" for example - over the past few years. Over the past couple of days the language has sunk to a whole new level particular in the extent of the scapegoating, the mocking use of French, and the claims about some gigantic ethnic conspiracy against people who live in this province.

Something say that people weren’t reading those posts because they agree with the Premier’s views.

Not to be outdone, the Premier’s parliamentary secretary went on a commie hunt during his speech on the budget.  Not to be limited, though, he also took the chance to let us all know that while equality is a nice idea, it just isn’t “realistic” in the society in which we live.

It’s a good thing that after seven years, Ridgeley finally gave us some insight into his own political philosophy.  It would be interesting to see him knocking doors in the next general election defending that idea, but your humble e-scribbler is going out on a limb here to predict that Tail-gunner Bob won’t be running again.

You have to wonder, though, if these two in their views – the Premier and his wingman – really do represent the views of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, as the Premier once claimed?

-srbp-

Same circus #nlpoli

Somewhere in Newfoundland and Labrador,  someone may not have heard the news.

There is oil and natural gas in the ground under water off our coast.

Never mind that this has been widely reported since the 1960s when someone first started exploring seriously out there.  Never mind, either, that we have had oil fields producing oil and filling the provincial government's bank account with billions of dollars since the late 1990s.

Some people might have missed that we have oil and has.  And we have a lot more than anyone is currently producing.

It is out of concern for these couple of folks living in a cave possibly in the Annieopsquotch Mountains that the provincial government has held a news conference to announce the latest estimates of how much more oil might, possibly, theoretically be out there.

Well, either that or it is polling month and the politicians are in deep political trouble this year, like their predecessors were last October when they held a news conference to announce last year's estimates of theoretical future gloriosity lurking somewhere underground. Maybe.

Rideout tags Tories for election pork-fest #nlpoli

Former premier Tom Rideout didn’t mince words about the orgy of pork-barrel spending his former caucus colleagues have been pushing in the run-up.

On a political panel on Tuesday morning, Rideout told the audience for CBC Radio’s West Coast Morning Show that the public mood has changed over the past few decades and that people view these things differently now than the way they used to.

Rideout, who said he liked to think he had an independent mind, said he thought the provincial Conservatives can go too far with their announcements, and re-announcements and announcements of the same spending for the third and fourth time.

Rideout singled out municipal affairs minister Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien, saying that O’Brien had acted “like a buffoon”’ by going around the province “dropping off fire trucks” all over the place.  Rideout said that he could have left it up to the local member of the House of Assembly.

The issue wouldn’t be enough to defeat the government, said  Rideout, but he did feel there could be a backlash in some areas.

Wow.

Rideout basically confirmed what your humble e-scribbler has been picking up for months from all around the province.  Lots of people are miffed for lots of reasons.  The blatant pork-barrelling is just the latest thing.

The fire trucks have become a twisted symbol of the Conservative’s old-fashioned political mentality.

What’s really startling here is that Rideout openly laced into his political colleagues and tagged one minister in particular.

That’s a huge sign that the provincial Tories are not the invincible political behemoth they once were no matter what the townie media would want to read into CRA’s always dubious poll results.

Stable political environment? 

Try not to pee your new back-to-school pants no matter how hard it is to stifle the guffaws.

Kathy Dunderdale did say she thought the poll suggested the polling numbers had stabilised but that was just because the Tories have been in a pretty sharp decline for most of the last year.

But with the Tories having the support of 40% of respondents to a recent poll and the opposition parties at 18% and 16%, it wouldn’t take much to give Kath and Fairity a visit from the Old Hag.

There’s more to it than fire trucks. O’Brien could well be a liability in other parts of the province, too,  becoming the poster-child for perceived political arrogance in the face of some fairly obvious cock-ups over the provincial government’s response to natural disasters.

On the Great Northern Peninsula there are other issues.

On the northeast coast there are others.

Still more on the Burin peninsula and in central Newfoundland.

And then there is the threat of Muskrat Falls.

Look around.

The mood is anything but settled.

Rideout is right:  it might not be enough to bring down the government yet.

But when a prominent Tory takes such a smack at other Tories as Rideout did this past Tuesday morning, it is enough to think things in this province  could get quite a shake in October.

- srbp -

Fernando 2: Liberals start Tory-style poll goosing #nlpoli

It's August and Corporate Research Associates is in the field.

On Tuesday, Ed Joyce told the people of Holyrood, Isles aux Morts, and Jackson's Arm that they would each be getting new fire trucks.

No, Ed didn't deliver a new fire truck to each community.  He held a news conference to announce that the three communities fire trucks were on order.

Hmmm.

Why would anyone hold a big announcement to say that government had put money aside for a new fire truck for three towns?

Go back and read that first sentence again.

Yes folks.  The Liberals - tanking in the polls - are going to try and goose that CRA poll with some happy news.

Steep Curves and Third Place #nlpoli

Liberal leader Dwight Ball told CBC’s David Cochrane this past weekend that his job as Opposition Leader came with a steep learning curve.

Indeed it does and on Monday, Ball proved just how steep the curve is.

Up her nose, sideways #nlpoli

For some reason, Kathy Dunderdale wants to know who is criticising her pet project.

Now she doesn’t come flat out and say that, but you can tell someone got her goat pretty good during the public utilities board hearings into Muskrat Falls.

You can tell because Kathy said so in the House of Assembly on May 29.

Williams knifes successor

The rift between Danny Williams and Kathy Dunderdale goes way beyond just a minor tiff.

Williams turned up at a book launch a couple of days after leaving the promise on a vacation.  Williams told reporters who showed up that Dunderdale and her crew are so concerned at distancing themselves from Williams that they won’t even let him have cabinet ministers’ cell phone numbers.

CBC quoted Williams:

"I think it's very clear that the premier and her staff have felt that it's appropriate to distance themself from me," he told reporters Sunday at an event to launch a photo book of his often combative life in politics.

"And if that's the case, so be it. That's her right as premier of the province," he said.

A couple of things stand out about this last twist in the tale.

First, it would be hard for Dunderdale’s staff  to control who has cell phone numbers. Certainly, her office could monitor calling patterns on government phones via the cell phone provider but there’s nothing to give the office control over private cell numbers.

Second, there’s the question of why Williams would want to have all the cabinet numbers.  Evidently he is interested in influencing cabinet deliberations.  In that context his comment about “her right” seems to be a little less than sincere.

Third, the fact Williams is openly discussing the rift is an obvious tactic to put Dunderdale under even greater pressure.  He knows that she holds office purely by someone else’s good will.  Dunderdale knows it and lots of others do, as well.  More than a few people will have noticed Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien in the CBC video of Williams at the airport a few days ago. 

Kevin’s a proud member of the Dan-Club for Men. Jerome’s another.  Ditto Tom Marshall.  While Kevin may not have much clout, Tom and Jerome do. 

Some Conservative loyalists, especially those who still believe in Williams’ invincibility and his infallibility, won’t take too kindly to Dunderdale now that Williams has criticised her. 

Fourth, you now have to wonder why he’s undermining his hand-picked successor so readily.  Williams told reporters the rift has nothing to do with Elizabeth Matthews and the botched offshore board appointment.

Okay.

So if that isn’t it, what does Williams want so badly that he is willing to openly attack her less than a week before she formally takes over as Tory party leader?

Don’t guess relations with the federal Conservatives.  Those were already on the mend long before now. 

Something else is going on.

The challenge now is to figure out what Danny is playing at.

One thing is for sure, Kathy Dunderdale has an even bigger political problem inside her own administration than anyone thought, even as recently as Thursday last week.

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Merry Christmas and all that Traffic! – Boxing Day edition

The top stories for the week of December 20-24, 2010, as determined by the readers of Sir Robert Bond Papers.

1. Williams’ abrupt departure “shocking”: Dunderdale
2. Williams to head Rogers sports empire?
3. The horrors of democracy
4. Connie leadership 2011:  Fairity got the call, too 
5. Belinda Stronach pictorial (Sadly the macleans.ca link is dead and apparently unrecoverable)
6. Potholes and compensation
7. Delacourt and the rumour mill
8. Muskrat Falls:  Internal Contradictions 2
9. Internal contradictions:  the editorialist version
10. Of Death Eaters and Horcruxes

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Connie Leadership 2011

Here’s your scorecard for the upcoming rumble.

This should also help you cut through the noise likely to come from all sorts of sources.

A.  Who will run…

• Joan Burke – According to some accounts her crew started working the phones the Danny Danny announced. She’s also reputed to have had a war chest ready to go for a couple of years.
• Jerome Kennedy – The perceived front-runner;  officially playing coy and a wee bit reluctant but that’s just for show.  Rumour on the Hill is that he’s got cash in the bank and a bunch of loyalists salted away in short-term jobs all through the Confed Building.  Jerome!’s been working on his image a bit here and there, suggesting he’s got someone coaching him. 
• Darin King – Hoping to come up the middle between two polarising candidates with gigantic negatives.  Bland might work.

B.  Who is likely to run…

• Kevin O’Brien – Premier Fairity  - below - may be the only person who thinks he should run. Likely wants to take the shot he gave up in 2000 to let Danny take the job.
• Steve Kent  - Officially, he won’t comment until after Christmas.  Expect him to give it a run to raise his profile. Someone registered draftstevekent.ca on November 29 when Danny’s political corpse wasn’t even chilly, let alone cold.

C.  Who might run…

• Shawn Skinner – Principal Skinner is one of those guys who might take it in his head to run but who is more likely to back someone like Kennedy.  His appointment to Natural Resources suggests he’ll be responsible for smacking the Muskrat Falls thing every now and then to make it seem like the Norwegian Blue is just kipping.
• Tom Osborne – the member that works is rumoured to be eyeing a job as the federal member that works.  His name still comes up and can’t be completely discounted.

D.  Who you can count out…

• Kathy Dunderdale – Headed for retirement anyway.  She got beatoned as a thank you on her way out the door for her loyal, if uninspiring, service to the Old Man.
• Tom Marshall – Ditto on the retirement thingy.  He hedged his bets for appearances sake during a recent scrum. 
• Tim Powers – A candidate in the imagination of people in Ottawa.  If, by some bizarre turn of events Powers actually runs, he’ll likely drag up the arse end of the pack slightly ahead of Kent and O‘Brien.
• Doug Moores
• Rick Hillier – the first name that cropped up  people anxious to have the racket start.  He’s got too much else on the go.  And besides, why would he give up a national profile for that gig?
• Senator Beth Marshall – Set for life and with a steady paycheque until she turns 75.  Would you give that up?
• Senator Fabian Manning – Seen in the Avalon Mall on Monday afternoon doing some shopping but as with Beth, why would any sane person give up the sinecure?

E.  Sentimental Favourite

Right in!  Right on!  Rideout!

 

- srbp -

 

*   Edited for typos and to clarify some sentences.

 

Catch-Update:  The mighty Ceeb cornered Darin King and got him on the record giving the standard line candidates use before they are ready to it over announce. Someone also asked Clyde Jackman and while Jackman said he’s going to take the holidays to mull over a leadership run, expect him to announce he is leaving politics.

Resting on his Laurels and Hardys

Danny Williams in the House of Assembly today:

Mr. Speaker, 93 per cent is a lot of confidence. That is the kind of confidence I think people have in this government as a result of our performance so far.

Let’s see what those numbers look like after this month and more of non-stop problems for Williams’ beleaguered administration.

After all, gentle readers, it is polling month and the gang that couldn’t shoot straight can’t even seem to find fairity let alone stick with a consistent line on the Abitibi expropriation mess or agree on a simple policy on closing down Holyrood.

Williams had a nice tan, though, on his first day in the legislature in a while.

-srbp-

poopourri - Friday Funny #nlpoli #nsfw

Forget all the heavy talk about pension liabilities, debt, Fairity O'Brien and the Liberal leadership.

Let’s talk about crap, or specifically one of the most hysterically funny commercial in a long time.

The product is called poopourri.  It’s a type of bathroom deodorizer.

-srbp-

This week has 22 e-mails

The controversy over the provincial government’s bungling of the emergency response to Hurricane Igor got a bit more curious on Monday when labradore released a series of e-mails he obtained from the provincial government under access to information laws.

The e-mails document a part of the record of how Danny Williams wound up recording a segment of This Hour has 22 Minutes the same week as the disaster.  Coupled with documents released to the Packet in April, they undermine the provincial government’s contention that they needed three or four days to figure out how bad things were before they asked the federal government for assistance.

CBC was originally scheduled to record the Williams’ appearance on September 21.  They put that off until later in the week, but here’s where things get really interesting. 

At 11: 00 AM the day of the storm, Danny Williams’ publicist sent an e-mail to an unidentified person at 22 minutes  that included the following comments:

We've cleared his schedule as we will be going around the province visiting sites. Destruction is widespread already and the storm hasn't even hit full force yet.

At that point they knew things were very bad.  They also knew they’d be “visiting sites”.  They obviously didn’t need to assess the situation since the provincial government’s emergency response organization had all sorts of sources of accurate information on roads, hospitals, schools and anything else going on in the province.  Williams and his crew were planning the standard politicians’ sight-seeing tours of disaster areas.  

Now the official explanation for the four day delay in calling in federal assistance is that the provincial government needed to figure out how bad things were and what they needed to do.    Williams’ successor Kathy Dunderdale, Tom Hedderson,  the municipal affairs minister at the time and the current municipal affairs minister, Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien all have tried on variations of that same argument.

But before noon on the day the storm hit, the Premier’s Office already knew that “Destruction” was widespread.

Later on the same day,  Williams’ publicist wrote this:

State of emergency being declared in a few places already. Major damage and flooding. The place is a mess.

But what really stands out is what you get when you cross reference the comments by Williams’ publicist with situation reporters released to the Packet by the federal government about its response to Igor. For some reason they are on the CBC’s website and not available from either the packet or its daily big-brother, the Telegram.

In an e-mail giving the situation as of 13:15 PM September 21, a federal situation report contained this note:

Highway infrastructure is profoundly impacted. Of all events, Fire and Emergency Services NL (FESNL) has stated that this is by far the worst disaster that they are facing.

The note refers to a death that happened.

But bear in mind this information came to the federal emergency co-ordination team from the provincial government’s team at FESNL.  Public Safety Canada and the National Defence both had liaison officers at the FESNL emergency operations centre to make co-ordination easier.

So if the provincial government had such a handle on the scope of the problem, why did they hesitate to call in extra resources?

Good question.

So far there hasn’t been a good answer.

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Local pols to s**t bricks

Tom Hedderson, Fairity O’Brien and other lame local politicians will likely be re-thinking their political futures soon.

CBC announced Friday that Anthony Germain will be hosting the CBC’s flagship morning show in Newfoundland and Labrador later this summer.  He will replace Jeff Gilhooley, who is retiring in July.

His reporting career spans two decades from local radio in New Brunswick to CBC Radio's parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. In the nation's capital, Germain won investigative awards from the Canadian Association of Journalists for investigative reporting on both radio and television.

Germain has hosted CBC Radio's flagship political show The House as well as the local Ottawa morning show. He has been a guest host on The Current, As It Happens, and The Sunday Edition.

Germain is currently the CBC’s China correspondent.

Germain will be the latest in a series of heavy-hitter hosts on the corporation’s major morning broadcast in the province.  The CBC has three other morning shows serving regions of the province but the St. John’s show has the largest audience and has been growing in popularity with the local audience.

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Buckingham not only local Tory to buck Dunderdale line on Harper #elxn41

St. John’s East member of the House of Assembly Ed Buckingham is known to be thoughtful and frank in his views.

No surprise therefore that Buckingham told the Canadian Parliamentary Affairs Channel (CPAC) that he is sitting on the sidelines in the current federal election campaign.  As CBC quotes him from the CPAC interview:

"I'm not aligning myself with anyone, I'm just going to sit on the sidelines and let events unfold as they will," ….

Buckingham isn’t alone.

Other provincial Conservatives aren’t banging doors to get their federal cousins elected even though in pretty well all cases, the federal candidate is a former provincial Conservative caucus member.

Your humble e-scribbler’s had a few e-mails and tweets about local Tories who are changing the air in their tires or sorting their DVD collection rather than work for a Muskrat Falls loan guarantee via Stephen Harper’s pledges.

Anyone seen Fairity O’Brien out in Gander trying to unseat Scott Simms?

In the CBC story, at least one of the Tories who is playing along certainly doesn’t look very enthusiastic.  Tom Osborne, of the local Conservative powerhouse family, only says that he’s “lent a hand” and done “a little bit “ of campaigning with St. John’s South-Mount Pearl Conservative candidate Loyola Sullivan.  Now that’s not very much energy for a guy who reportedly thought about running for Harper’s gang at one point.

The real story here, though, is not about the number of elected provincial Conservatives who are not following Kathy Dunderdale’s lead and latched their lips to the federal Conservative leader’s hindmost regions.

Nope.

The real story here is that, according to the only poll released thus far, rank and file provincial Conservatives are likewise not supporting Kathy Dunderdale’s direction. If they were, Sullivan, Jerry Byrne and Fabian Manning would be leading in their respective seats.  They aren’t. 

Sullivan isn’t doing well at all.  That’s nasty considering that two of the provincial seats in his riding are held by members of the Osborne-Ridgley machine and every seat on the northeast Avalon is currently held by a provincial Tory.  If they really could deliver the vote – or wanted to - surely they would.

Given the way Kathy tied the federal election and her Muskrat Falls obsession together, it’s going to be hard to avoid connecting the dots should the federal Conservatives fail in their efforts to gain a seat in the province.  And if they win only one seat by a slim margin, Kathy Dunderdale cannot claim to hold a marker for some future favour.

Odd as it may seem the real political story of the federal election in this province might wind up being the implications it holds for provincial politics.

BTW, have they had the nomination for Buckingham’s district yet?  Just curious.

- srbp -

Montana Time #nlpoli

Both CBC provincial affairs reporter David Cochrane and Telegram editor Russell Wangersky had opinion pieces this weekend telling the provincial Conservatives that they have a big political problem now that they are in third place in a CRA poll. 

The Conservatives need to change what they are doing.

Wangersky had some specific suggestions on changes.  Cochrane added the tidbit of news that there is a cabal  inside the Tory caucus that is growing increasingly frustrated with the inaction of people running the cabinet and caucus.  They live inside The Bubble apparently.

This is pretty much the same thing SRBP has been on about for the past year or so.  The Tories are in a hole.  They need to stop digging.

Great minds think alike, eventually.

The fools differ.

Small ball, election dates, and other minutae #nlpoli

Later today, Premier Paul Davis will introduce a bill in the House of Assembly that, among other things,  sets the next provincial general election for the last week of November. The most likely day for voting is November 24, with the official campaign starting 21 days before that.


There’s no surprise in this. The Conservatives have been talking about November as an option since January when they introduced the plan to cut public representation in the legislature. Reporters asked Liberal leader Dwight Ball at the time if he thought the election should be delayed to November to avoid a clash with the federal election set for October 19. Ball said he didn’t have a problem with the delay.

For the past couple of weeks, Ball has been insisting that the Conservatives need to have the election done by the end of September. That’s the anniversary of Paul Davis’ election as Conservative leader. It’s also the third different position, incidentally, that Ball has taken within the past six months on the timing of the next election. At the end of last year, Ball told the CBC he thought people should go to the polls in February in order to let a new government deal with the provincial government’s financial problems. A couple of weeks later, Ball had no problem with a November. Now, he wants it all done by the end of September.

“Letter perfect”? Guess again.

Municipal affairs minister Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien thinks that his government’s response to last year’s Hurricane Igor disaster was absolutely correct in every respect.

In fact, he is so convinced of the rightness of what he and his colleagues did that 

“I would not change a thing and it's fine for you to say, like looking at an email — a paper trail — and say that somebody up in Ottawa or someone somewhere else was scratching their head," said an emotional O'Brien [in a CBC interview].

You can hear the full O’Brien interview here:  CBC Radio St. John’s Morning Show.

CBC left the final word of their piece with someone who was coping with the disaster while cabinet ministers flitted around on helicopters “assessing” things and talking to reporters:

Eric Squires, the Anglican minister in Catalina and the organizer of relief efforts when people were left without necessities, said the provincial government failed residents.

"[I'm] really disgusted because we were desperate out here for water and bread," said Rev. Squires.

"I called [provincial] fire and emergency services to ask if we could get a boat to go across the bay to get some bread and water and they said 'No, buy what you want and send us the bill.' And during the same time they turned down [federal] help for us."

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The Secrets Policeman’s Bollocks #nlpoli

CBC demolished the false claims a couple of Conservative cabinet ministers made in order to justify their efforts to destroy the public’s access to government information.

Justice minister Felix Collins claimed that they had to cut down the number of information requests, which he said numbered in the thousands each year.  Service NL minister Paul Davis said in the House of Assembly: “"You know, they make countless and countless requests for information…”.

The indelicate art of cabin-making #nlpoli

1. If Ross Wiseman is the new Speaker because Tom Osborne withdrew, that’s because Osborne knows he’s going back into cabinet.
2. Tom should send a thank you note to Gerry Rogers, the Skinner-skinner. 
3. Steve Kent will get a cabinet post, most likely something light and fluffy. Think intergovernmental affairs and the voluntary sector.  There are lots of made-up cabinet posts and plenty of light and fluffy caucus bodies competing for them but Kent’s been around since 2007 and Mount Pearl usually gets a minister. 
4. As much as you could run the place with about a third fewer ministers than the current cabinet has, Dunderdale likely won’t cut many posts, if any.  She needs to keep the ambitious crowd on her benches under control for a while, especially in light of the serious kick in the stones the party took in St. John’s.
5. The huge upset along the Burin peninsula will mean that both Darin and Clyde will get cabinet jobs. What cabinet jobs they get is another matter. Jackman might not get fish back considering he made a balls of it already.
6. If Dunderdale is serious about restructuring the fishery, she’ll need someone with a titanium spine and nothing to lose politically to take the job. Her only caucus member with those criteria  - Jerome! - is already busy and would be better deployed in another portfolio.
7. Marshall will likely stay on in finance. Dunderdale’s choices are limited. if you didn’t leave him there, where else could Tom go?
8. Education needs a shake-up. Unfortunately, there are few choices to shake it up and lots of resistance from the school board mafia led by Darin King to any substantive changes for the better in the province’s education system.
9. Natural resources is a plum job even though Dunderdale will likely keep her fingers in most of the major issues. As much as someone like Jerome! could deliver a major shakeup to a department is long overdue for a gutting, odds are this little plum will be kept for close friends of the Boss.  Due rewards for their service to the Dunderdale cause:  Joan Burke and Susan Sullivan. Take yer pick.
10. Fairity O’Brien could get left on the benches as a thank you for his loyalty to the Old Man.  The only more fitting political reward would be fisheries minister with a mandate to overhaul the industry at no cost to the treasury.
11. Whoever gets tourism, culture and recreation will be Dunderdale’s new pork and patronage czar.  Terry French did that job so admirably during the Old Man’s second term that he is due a promotion. 

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Cross Sheila off your list

Remember the December deal and all the claims that the provincial Tories would all be standing for re-election, bar none?

Yeah, well you could take that one to the bank. Not.

As your humble e-scribbler told you a while ago there are a few Conservatives who will be cashing out rather than take another run at fattening the pension even more.

For the record, here’s the partial list from last week’s post:

The provincial Conservatives, for example, included a pledge to run again for all incumbents in the December deal that installed Kathy Dunderdale for a longer interim term than originally planned.

Before then, the slate of incumbents likely to quit included Dunderdale herself.  Finance minister Tom Marshall was reputedly headed for retirement, along with Sheila Osborne , Bob Ridgley*, Roger Fitzgerald, Dave Denine and a few others who were pensionable.

Michael Connors of NTV tweeted on Wednesday that St. John’s West incumbent Sheila Osborne is leaving.

Local rumblings also have it that minister of something or other Dave Denine will also leave a seat vacant should some Mount Pearl municipal councilor want to take a shot at a promotion and a bigger salary.

Can Sheila’s bro Tom Ridgley be far behind?  How about Fairity O’Brien and Harry Harding?

It could only be a matter of time. The Tories are a little over halfway through their list of nominations and some districts are conspicuous by their absence.

Stay tuned.

- srbp -

* Corrected from Tom Ridgeley in original.