I read the item in the Telegram about former Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador Roger Grimes receiving the plum appointment of Chair of the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB). Not quite as juicy a plum as that awarded to the other Liberal grandee, now Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador, Judy Foote but juicy enough for a former premier who was never actually elected to the premiership.
Grimes was appointed to the C-NLOPB in 2018 and, still a wunderkind at his age, lo and behold he is promoted to the big boss chair in a year or less.
Both appointments underscore the fact in my opinion the Liberal Party looks after its own above all else. The appointments also underscore the fact that we the electorate may vote our political masters out but we can never actually be rid of them.
They keep returning to haunt us like undead zombies turning up on commissions, boards, tribunals, other positions high and low inflicting on us their baleful influence all the while hand shaking back slapping working the political circles and intoning on a compliant media as self-described “experts.”
It is all so nauseating I don’t understand how we put up with it. The appointment of former premier Grimes, who lives half the year in sunny South Carolina, is an insult to us humble Newfoundlanders who must endure the full rigours of our cold snowy windy climate year round. Yet we will stand for it caps in hand tugging our collective forelocks. Grimes can help make decisions about the offshore rules by which we must live by but he himself actually live here? Not for half the year anyway.
This Newfoundlander Grimes (or is he now a South Carolinian Grimes) will have substantial say on the determinations of the C-NLOPB which decides important rules about our offshore.
I for one query how someone who apparently lives in sunny warm South Carolina half the year can be as concerned about oil spills off our offshore as someone who lives on this Rock the year round.
Well, at least the sandy shores of Myrtle Beach South Carolina will be crystal clean from any oil spill off Newfoundland.
Robin Reid,
St. John’s
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