The political signs in the news were and are a demonstration of expression by people who feel the Premier is not serving them well. This is a legitimate form of protest in our democracy. Considering the most recent CRA poll - the signs and their owners reflect the feelings of a significant number of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
Rather than attempt to deal with those legitimate feelings toward a newbie Premier and Cabinet - the government decided that removing the sight of a protest was far more important than dealing with it.
Many people in the province have been struggling to determine if the Premier and his government are deceptive, grossly incompetent or both.
What we do know is that:
1. Ed Martin was given a very questionable and costly severance package,
2. the Nalcor Board went rogue and government did nothing to protect us,
3. The Muskrat Falls debacle continues,
4. The Government missed significant contract deadlines to begin negotiations with two significant Unions,
5. Delivered a budget completely contrary to the election promises (claiming ignorance of the scale of the financial mess left by the PC's).
Each of these topics deserve their own attention and I will - as one citizen - do my part and post separately on each one.
For now I will focus on the sign issue.
What makes this so relevant is the attempt by government to cover-up involvement by a staffer in the Premier's Office to thwart democratic expression and what is a growing pattern of deception, incompetence or both.
The CBC uncovered the fact that the Communications Director for the Premier, Nancy O'Connor, emailed the Memorial University for 3 reasons:
1. She wanted to know who owned poles on the parkway,
2. If the University owned the poles did they have a policy about posters on them, and
3 If the policy was no posters allowed - would they take them down.
Nancy O'Connor was clearly looking for a way to remove the signs calling for the Premier's resignation.
Nancy O'Connor was not seeking to police MU on its policies on campus.
Nancy O'Connor does not know the most basic information about our electrical supply system.
Nancy O'Connor is either incompetent or dismissive regarding the very basics of democracy.
Nancy O'Connor placed a priority on this minor albeit politically annoying issue when compared with the issues that generated the poster campaign.
The priority to protect her boss from having to see his political mugshot on the way to work is not the action of a competent communications "expert". This in part (albeit a hidden one until yesterday) is what in part caused the sign scandal.
O'Connor's email was clear and it was an attempt to have political expression quashed.
The Minister of Transportation and Works is on the record as saying it was not his decision to remove the signs and if it were it may very well have been a different decision.
So while the Minister is concerned about the actions of a worker conducting unacceptable "operational" tasks - the Premier's Director of Communication was out attempting to achieve the same result.
The Premier in a scrum yesterday on this issue answered the first question by stating the actions of Nancy O'Connor "...it really wasn't about taking the posters down."
The public are left again asking the question incompetence or deception?
O'Connor's email was clear - she was seeking a way to have the posters removed.
Then the Premier said the call (email) of O'Connor "that would be expected of someone working in the Premier's Office or a Director of Communications simply to get some clarification on what the policy was around those posters." Here - once again - the public are left to ask incompetence or lies? In a government where the overriding belief is supposed to be supportive of free political expression as part of democracy - a Communications Director for the Premier would not be asking the University about it's poster policies.
The next question and answer is telling. The Premier was asked why he did not tell the public about this when asked about it three weeks ago. The Premier responded, "The question was about taking down those posters. There was no direction given from the Premier's Office in any way shape or form in taking down those policies (not a typo) ."
This is - at best - obfuscation. Let's review the actual body of the email from Nancy O'Connor to the University "Telling DB to resign ... Are these poles belonging to MUN or Power?
And are ppl allowed to put posters on them? If not can someone take them
down?"
The request was made by Nancy O'Connor to "take them down". The fact that she was unsuccessful as she was barking up the wrong pole owner and trivializing free expression only demonstrates her ignorance not her intent. The fact that she was unsuccessful does not remove the Premier's Office from the same thinking and actions used by somebody working for the Department of Transportation and Works.
Lastly the Telegram's James McLeod asked the logical question after the Premier stated earlier that O'Conner's call (email) "...it really wasn't about taking the posters down". He asked "but she did ask to take these posters down?" The Premier responded "if indeed the policy was that they were allowed to be there - the answer came back and said this was not a contradiction or indeed there was no policy around this they were allowed to be there."
It clearly was about taking the posters down if O'Connor could get another party to do it. To say it was not about taking the posters down is a deceptive comment. The fact that O'Connor spent time on a Sunday to find someway to take the posters down and was unsuccessful leads the mind to ask about the coincidence that an unknown person in the Department of Transportation and works was thinking the same political way on that Sunday.
This is what makes this story go far beyond posters or signs. It adds to a pattern of incompetence or deception or both. This is what is driving the polls for the Liberals and the Premier off a cliff.
I would need to hear the response from the University to determine if Nancy O'Connor found out from them that not only did they not own the poles but that the real owner allows posters. If the response did not state this as a fact - how did O'Connor ever determine that posters were allowed on the poles. Did O'Conner ever ask the city? Newfoundland Power? Nalcor? Ministers?
Let's imagine for a moment that MU owned the poles and had a policy of no posters - is it really the job of the Premier's Office to police MU to ensure it's following its poster rules? Is that the priority? Of course not - instead it looks like the work of a rookie zealous party partisan.
If a manager in the Department of Works and Services got word that the Premier's Office were trying to find a way to remove posters from utility poles - perhaps they decided they were assisting the Premier's Office in achieving its objective.
I repeat from yesterday, if Nancy O'Connor - who has stated experience in communications regarding Nalcor and Muskrat Falls - does not know who owns utility poles and has no resources to find out other than a University colleague - she should be fired. In a Telegram story this morning one of the people involved in the poster campaign said “We didn’t go out and do this willy nilly. We actually read the
municipal guidelines and made sure what we were doing was not illegal,” (emphasis added) Instead we watch a Premier protecting a senior staffer in the same way he protected Ed Martin and the former Board until the contract and severance package became public.
One more line of questions: why did this reportedly seasoned communications professional concentrate on these posters on a Sunday? Did the Chief of Staff give her a call? Did anybody encourage her to take on this useless waste of time? Perhaps I am being harsh and somebody else should be fired. Perhaps this pattern of behavior is not coming from the Director of Communications - maybe it's higher up.
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