‘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.
