OFFICE OF CONSUMER ADVOCATE: EDIFICE TO WORTHLESSNESS

‘If you are hunting bears, don’t go chasing rabbits’ is a familiar warning not to do something far less important than what you hope to achieve. The metaphor is perfectly applicable to those who devote great energies to minor political issues, leaving the larger ones virtually untouched.

Talk of austerity will expose many examples. Disapproval towards the Mayor of St. John’s, who is on a junket to some cruise line conference at a cost in the neighbourhood of $6,000, is one. The trip is winning more press than disclosure he had negotiated, at least initially, with Danny Williams for a 20 acre parcel of his real estate, reportedly having a price tag of $8.5 million; a secretive process that kept others at bay. The deal did not get finished. But that his head wasn’t called for or that guidelines at City Hall weren’t immediately strengthened to prevent such abuses of power, is proof of vastly misaligned public policy priorities by both the media and people, generally.

The Premier and his Fisheries Minister have been chided for attending a Fisheries Exhibition, too. Amidst a $2 billion deficit on current account, minds need to be turned to a plethora of bigger issues involving big money. It’s tantamount to tracing rabbits; it won’t get you real change.

"PERFECT STORM" NOT SOLVED BY INDECISION

There’s no joy to be found in poking fun at the new Liberal Government’s dithering over the province’s fiscal crisis. See Budget Consultations: Wait for the Colouring Books.

There is only worry that they are not up to the challenge, or don’t fully understand it.

That we are in the midst of an ill-timed and poorly conceived public relations/consultation campaign is particularly troubling, and not just because weighty decisions are delayed.

The idea of asking people to participate in an exercise, in the first place, without offering them the tools (and I don’t mean colouring books) perquisite to a meaningful discussion of ideas to deal with the problem, is inconsistent with a legitimate claim to and desire for public engagement.

The perilous state of our finances should have been met with a Stage I, the "no brainer" list of decisions; crisis needs an immediate response.