In the dying days of the October 3 provincial election Premier Robert Ghiz needed to buy votes in Tignish. He promised a ‘minimum’ $50,000 annual investment in the Tignish Health Co-op, which struggles to raise money to simply maintain the building.
The co-op is the only facility of its kind in the province that must finance its own operations and the premier’s promise gave the impression of immediacy. He offered no inclination that the necessary cash infusion would be caught up in a budgetary maze.
That is exactly what happened after the Liberals were returned to office. Suddenly the premier’s promise became far less specific. Now the $50,000 is simply another potential line item fighting for survival in what is guaranteed to be a brutal spring budget.
The Tignish Health Co-op will have to wait.
Health care providers must wait.
Residents of West Prince must wait.
If the premier treated all Islanders equally maybe you could rationalize a delay in keeping his promise to Tignish. But this administration is seemingly incapable of equal treatment. It allows Liberal friends to saddle up to the patronage trough, while priorities like a West Prince health co-op wait.
There’s Danny Walker. He lost as a Liberal candidate in the 2007 election, after which he was appointed a ‘special advisor’ to the premier in Kings County. Walker couldn’t get a Liberal nomination this time around. Now he’s landed a job in the Department of Agriculture at a time when the civil service is supposed be shrinking in size.
There is Joe O’Keefe, whose career as a political aide should have ended when his former boss Allan Campbell was defeated. Campbell found his reward and so did O’Keefe who replaced Walker as the premier’s ‘special advisor’ in Kings County.
Joe O’Keefe’s position is an utter waste of money, not to mention an affront to democracy. If the premier believes his party is under-represented in specific areas he has 21 fellow MLAs who could do a little extra duty. It is not like our MLAs are over-worked with committee meetings or legislative sessions. And God forbid the government actually sit down and talk local issues with the validly elected representative for the area.
There are communication personnel whose primary responsibility appears to be to follow cabinet ministers around taking vanity photos. It’s another example of misplaced priorities.
But the worst offense, an outrage to all Islanders, is the handing of a $60,000 contract so defeated Liberal MLA Cynthia King can act as CEO of Forever Anne.
What is that you say?
Good question. The short answer is it is a patronage make work project that will generate zero benefit for taxpayers or the tourism industry.
Five years ago the Tourism Industry Association of PEI created a committee to work in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables in 2008. Since then the committee has continued its work, although its efforts were sporadic with no tangible results.
Last February TIAPEI asked the Ghiz government to fund an ED position. The government considered the request so silly it didn’t even respond.
But in December, after a just few phone calls, $60,000 in unbudgeted taxpayers’ money miraculously was found. And just as miraculously Cynthia King happened to be working on her resume, which she just happened to drop off at TIAPEI.
To complete construction of this patronage trough, TIAPEI shamefully set aside any semblance of basic business best practices. It did not advertise the position. It did not seek other candidates. It simply used taxpayers’ money to give Cynthia King a job.
In short, even if you believe the Forever Anne position is necessary (it is not), TIAPEI has no idea if it hired the most qualified candidate because it was a job competition built for one.
The abuse of taxpayers is sickening. And the collusion of the tourism industry to deliver Liberal patronage will only further cement the public perception that it is a pawn of the provincial government.
Why should taxpayers support any TIAPEI initiative when it shows such willful disdain for Island taxpayers?
In the coming months Premier Robert Ghiz will tell Islanders cutbacks are necessary. He will slash programs and the size of the civil service and he will ask all Islanders to do our part.
Governing is all about priorities. Funding health care in Tignish is a far greater priority than a communications flunky carrying a camera. And it’s a damn far greater priority than handing a job to the Danny Walkers, Joe O’Keefes and most certainly Cynthia Kings of the world.
Governing is about real priorities. And it’s about time the Ghiz government realized that.
Paul MacNeill is Publisher of Island Press Limited. He can be contacted at paul@peicanada.com