Eddie the Entertainer

Eddie the Entertainer

By: Ryan Young

I seem to talk about communication problems quite a bit on this blog, and just when you think that it can’t get any worse, the Liberal’s had the bright idea to set Eddie Joyce loose on the media to defend the government’s snow clearing performance this year. While Transportation and Works Minister, Al Hawkins, is away on vacation, Joyce was appointed “acting minister” in his absence. Eddie assures us all that absolutely nothing has changed in the government’s snow clearing policy and that the level of service is the same as it always was. In the last week, he has managed to blame everything from bald tires to bad weather forecasts as reasons why people are upset about snow clearing in the province. Despite repeated videos and pictures from across the province showing otherwise, Joyce maintains that everything is business as usual on our highways.

An expert on all things, Eddie says that in his 20+ years in government, not a thing has changed with snow clearing. The only thing that has changed is that operators are no longer being paid to sit in depots on clear nights. He has dismissed concerns by NAPE President Jerry Earle and Independent MHA, Paul Lane, and emails that have been provided by T&W staff showing abysmal equipment availability rates and trigger points.

Joyce says that availability rates are misleading and that the 10cm trigger point is incorrect, despite department emails from last week that specifically refer to that number. Eddie says the trigger point is actually 6cm and during a call with Pete Soucy on Tuesday, he said that would explain when the change was made to make it 6cm, but he never actually got around to giving us that information. I hope that when Minister Hawkins returns this week, that he can clarify what the actual trigger point for forecasted snow is, and when the actual change was made. I don’t envy Hawkins though for having to come back from a nice vacation to have to deal with the PR nightmare that Joyce has turned the department into over an eventful couple of weeks.

During his call to Pete Soucy and his interview with CBC on Tuesday, Joyce kept answering questions by making veiled personal attacks at Paul Lane. Soucy even called him on it, asking if they could discuss the issue instead of trying to discredit another person for information that they did not even provide. It should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Eddie’s career. Coming from a boxing background, Eddie doesn’t know much about anything, but he does like to pick a good fight. I mean I honestly feel embarrassed for the man every time he opens his mouth. Whenever you can’t answer a question with facts, play the blame game. Then again, Eddie is certainly not alone in that as this current crop of Liberals has not been able to accomplish much in the past year, other than to blame everyone else for their blunders and mistakes.

At a time where confidence in government is at an all-time low, you really have to wonder if it is arrogance or incompetence that is really running the show up on the hill. When the premier and the communications team decides let Eddie Joyce have full reign to run his mouth about something as complain-worthy to NL’ers as snow clearing, then you really have to wonder if they even give the smallest fuck about the public perception of this government. I mean Eddie Joyce…c’mon. The man sounds like a cartoon character on a bad trip at the best of times, and no matter what the Liberals might owe Eddie Joyce, they have to know that every single time he opens his mouth, their government loses a little more credibility.

Many of my readers may not know that Eddie got his start in politics by winning a seat back in 1989. Unfortunately, Clyde Wells lost his seat and needed to win a by-election in a seat that was guaranteed Liberal. Eddie resigned from his seat in Bay of Islands and became a high-level staffer and Wells won the seat by acclimation. So, in case you are wondering how in the world Elmer Fudd became a cabinet minister, now you know. The good old boys club owed Eddie a carrot and Dwight Ball, aka Mr. Nice made sure that Eddie got it, even if it meant having a cabinet minister to represent his government that has absolutely no educational qualifications or communication abilities. Dwight would do well to shuffle his cabinet in the near future, but unfortunately, he probably does not have the foresight to realize the damage being done to his governments reputation by ministers who continuously put their own egos above the good of the people. When your judgement is so poor that you send Eddie Joyce out to communicate with the public, there doesn’t seem to be much left to say….

The Twelve Rogues of Christmas IV - Al Hawkins

The Twelve Rogues of Christmas IV - Al Hawkins

Part 4 of the Twelve Rogues of Christmas takes a look at Grand Falls - Windsor - Buchans MHA and Transportation and Works Minister, Al Hawkins.

Click Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ztx6rUDrqE

#POSTERGATE

#POSTERGATE

By: Ryan Young

When Al Hawkins, Minister for Transportation and Works, stood up in the House of Assembly during question period and admitted the department’s role in the removal of posters that were plastered along Prince Phillip Parkway in St. John’s calling for Dwight Ball to resign, our government officially admitted that democracy holds no place in their version of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Opposition Leader Paul Davis asked if the removal of the posters had been ordered by government and we were told by Minister Hawkins that it was an “operational decision” made within the department. An “operational decision” to pay employees to go out at three in the morning and remove posters that were placed there by protestors exercising their democratic right over the weekend. Hawkins was quick to throw this mysterious official under a white van by saying that if the order had come across his desk the outcome might have been different. It was later reported that the department had paid a private contractor $200 to remove the posters in the middle of the night. Bizarre does not even begin to explain this story.

Premier Ball denied any involvement from his office, but with his track record with the truth lately, we can take that denial with a grain of salt. According to the official government story we are supposed to believe that some Dwight Ball admirer at the Department of Transportation & Works ordered the use of taxpayer money to send contractors out in the middle of the night to take the posters down. Apparently this official never bothered to check with either the minister’s office or the premier’s office before making this “operational decision.” They acted on what Minister Hawkins tried to pass off as standard procedure. Just to be clear, we heard in the House of Assembly that it is standard procedure to send out an unmarked white van at three in the morning to remove posters that just happen to call for the resignation of the premier. Have we got that clear? Yeah okay…

So back here in the real world that exists outside of the egos that fill the House of Assembly, it has become painfully clear that this is just another half assed effort by this government to do some damage control. For some reason, some official in government thought it would be less damaging politically to use taxpayer money in the middle of the night to tear down the posters than to just leave them up. Even people who didn’t have much of an opinion on Ball resigning are now outraged that taxpayer money could be wasted in such a trivial and petty manner. Even the $200 figure that the government threw out seems absurd. Who were these contractors they hired anyway? A couple of guys they found in a white van over by Costco? The whole thing would be funny if it did not cut to heart of the sad reality we must now face. This government does not have a sweet clue what they are doing.

The protestors have already started putting the “resign” posters back up and requests are being made from all over the province for copies. This is just another Liberal controversy that ended up as an exercise in futility. Well it won’t be exactly futile I suppose, they did manage to give the people one more example of just how incompetent they really are. With such a simple lack of foresight on matters like this how can we expect them to successfully navigate our troubled economic waters? From the time they have taken office they have gotten everything wrong. The funny/sad part is that these ministers sit at the table with their little armies of bureaucrats wondering how to make things better, seemingly not realizing that these are the same bureaucrats who ran things for the Tories for the last 12 years. The same bureaucrats that crafted the Tory policy that the Liberals habitually blame for each and every problem they now have to manage. It’s like a video of a dog chasing his tail, it’s funny at first but then it just gets sad. It seems like this crop of Liberals had no idea of how to run a government from the start, and decided to rely on the team already in place to get the job done, despite the obvious track record of that team. Sound like incompetence? Maybe you are starting to see the pattern.

It doesn’t even matter if Minister Hawkins or Premier Ball are telling the truth about their lack of involvement in #POSTERGATE at this point. There have been so many lies now that nobody believes a word that is coming out of any of their mouths. They have lost the confidence of the people and there is no miracle that Dwight Ball has up his sleeve that can get it back. Dwight’s resignation is only a matter of time. If he wanted to rally the masses to make sure, #POSTERGATE was the perfect choice. Using taxpayer money to take his smug mug off of poles is the perfect way to show us how you really feel the people’s concerns. As much as I don’t want to see another election in a year, how much more can we really take?

*Author's Note* You can get a PDF version of the RESIGN poster here:

 http://droptheball.ca/resign.pdf