Chronicle Herald: All-party committee mired in bickering
Friday, June 25th, 2010
The party leaders have spoken, but maybe the public accounts committee didn’t get the message.
Premier Darrell Dexter, Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil and interim Progressive Conservative leader Karen Casey met Tuesday to break a stalemate over agenda-setting at the legislature’s highest-profile committee.
They all seemed satisfied the committee would be able to move past the acrimony of the last few months.
But it was not to be.
Wednesday’s meeting again degenerated into bickering and ended without MLAs doing any work on the committee agenda.
Chairwoman Diana Whalen, a Liberal MLA, said it appeared the New Democrat committee members weren’t fully informed of what the leaders had decided. She said she hopes they will find out so the committee can meet again and work on an agenda.
Tory MLA Cecil Clarke chastised the New Democrats, saying Dexter and his officials “have to train the seals more because they’re coming in here not knowing what they’re voting for or against.”
New Democrat MLA Leonard Preyra said he did talk to Dexter on Tuesday after the leaders’ meeting and went to Wednesday’s meeting ready to work on an agenda. He blamed the opposition for grandstanding instead of being productive and took a shot at Whalen.
“Sometimes chairs don’t understand that they’re not there as deputy leaders of their parties,” said Preyra, referring to Whalen’s former position in the Liberal caucus.
“They have a duty to put aside their partisan advantage that they have as chair and make that committee work. And so there’s blame enough to go around everywhere, but certainly the chair has to take some responsibility for making this work.”