Over the past few months, readers of The Sir Robert Bond Papers have been treated to jabs aimed at Conservative members of parliament (MP) Norm Doyle and Loyola Hearn.
They have heard about cases of pinocchiosis inflicting one or the other and of both of them scoring zero on the Cred-o-Meter (r) on several occasions.
All fine, humourous and undoubtedly as annoying as those comments were to Hearn and Doyle supporters, they are rooted not so much in partisanship as in an acknowledgement of the fundamental gap between what these gentlemen have said in the past and what they have done in the present.
The entire Fair Deal for Newfoundland campaign to pressure Hearn and Doyle, the calls to call-in radio shows, all have their origins in the vocal chords of the two MP.
Here are some samples of what they said on the issue of the offshore revenue deal and how a member of parliament should vote:
"I'’m there to look after Newfoundland, and the six other MPs also, and if we’re not we shouldn’'t be there."
- – Loyola Hearn, July 4, 2004
"We're sent to do a job; we'll stand up for Newfoundland regardless of who's for us or who's against us."
- – Loyola Hearn, November 13, 2004
"Never again do I expect to see the members from our province in such a position of clout. It would be a terrible shame if that clout were squandered by not using it at all."
–- Norm Doyle, October 26, 2004
"Why can we not, just once, stand united for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador? Why can we not, just once, stand on guard for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?"
–- Norm Doyle, October 26, 2004
These two gentlemen never hesitated for one second to conjure the spirits of nationalism and populism when they could be directed against their target: John Efford. They reveled in the damage the demons inflicted inflicted, making a very difficult issue intensely personal.
Mr. Hearn, in particular, proved that perceptions of him as a kind and decent fellow were utterly false. His deeply personal remarks, at times, were nothing short of scurrilous. They were hardly becoming of a former provincial cabinet minister, let alone a member of our national parliament and a potential federal cabinet minister in waiting.
It should be no surprise therefore that some people took delight in his predicament over bills C-43 and C-48. No surprise, therefore that the populist was hoist with his own petard.
The problem for Hearn and Doyle, however, is not a partisan one.
The tragedy of Doyle and Hearn is that they represent an old-fashioned approach to politics which has past. These men learned their politics in the 1960s and 1970s, practiced it through the Peckford insanity and then stumbled into Opposition in the 1990s. They slipped back behind the scenes only to re-emerge in the federal legislature where they sat largely unnoticed until recently.
Events of the past six months have shown both Doyle and Hearn to be mere relics of a style of politics that took voters for granted, that treated them as ignorant, that saw no problem with saying one thing and doing another.
Consider Hearn's recent post office nonsense.
Consider Hearn issuing a constituency flyer before the last election saying that Equalization clawbacks were contrary to the Atlantic Accord, while the clawbacks that existed were exactly the ones he voted to support in 1985.
Consider Hearn's attack on a fisheries matter in another jurisdiction that did not affect this province at all, yet was whipped into an Open Line Crisis. The ship in question, leased from a foreign owner was subsequently bought by the Canadian company thus giving the lie to Hearn's accusation that a Liberal government in Ottawa was letting foreigners take our fish.
Consider Hearn lately explaining how one bill must go through six stages before cash could flow (there are actually seven) taking upwards of a year while another bill could seemingly float magically through the same process in mere weeks.
Consider just within the past week, Hearn and Doyle flanking their Leader as he explained that they had developed a confidence two-step which, as Stephen Harper admitted, was merely a device to prevent Hearn and Doyle from being accused of voting against their province. This sham did not last to see the light of the next day.
Did they really think people were so gullible, so completely stupid?
To be fair, parliamentarians serve many masters with different interests. It is unreasonable to expect that they always side with their constituents, their party or their leader. Our democratic system is built on the expectation that parliamentarians will learn to balance the competing interests and ultimately exercise their best judgment on our behalf.
But here is where the modern democracy differs from the version that Hearn and Doyle practice. Modern democracy is a dialogue. Voters expect that politicians will speak frankly and reasonably. They expect to have discussion and disagreement. They expect that a politician will tell them what he or she plans to do and explain why in plain English.
The jibes to one side, the main reason why these electronic scribbles have poked at Hearn and Doyle is because they failed to measure up, not to their self-imposed standard of populist nonsense but to the baseline for modern democracy in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Hearn and Doyle had ample opportunity to state exactly what they were going to do on Thursday and explain why they thought it best for the country and the province. Let their Leader be hysterical and angry. Seasoned politicians can be strong-minded but relentless in their explanations.
What we got instead from Hearn and Doyle was spin - misrepresentations, half-truths and in some cases contradictory answers from one question to another.
What we got from Hearn and Doyle was weak through and through and relentless only to the extent they both regurgitated their talking points over and over.
Not once did they even pretend to hold an intelligent conversation with their constituents.
To make matters worse, Hearn in particular picked fights - needless fights - with Premier Williams. His "neophyte" crack, if said in the heat of the moment could have been easily forgiven with an apology. Instead, Hearn made the matter worse with further insults, backed, a few days ago by the ever-charming Mr. Harper. To his credit, the Premier displayed restraint when asked to reply.
Hearn and Doyle together persisted in their implausible positions to the point where even their own supporters in the provincial Tory caucus were openly talking of deserting them. Whatever shred of credibility they had even with the most stalwart of Tory supporters, must surely be stripped from them by now. As some have said, how can they go door to door with these guys and sincerely ask voters to support them?
Taken all together, it would be very surprising if either Hearn or Doyle survived to the next election.
Both Hearn and Doyle barely won their seats in the last election. Hearn, in particular, had counted on an easy win in a safe seat; instead he found that a neophyte came within a hair's breadth of defeating him. His weak position in the riding has grown steadily weaker since the last election and in the past several days, one can see that whatever pillars served as his support have been demolished with his own jawbone.
When they stood to vote against the federal government's budget, Hearn and Doyle were seen as voting against their own province and their own people. Neither Doyle nor Hearn bothered to explain themselves to the very people whose support they needed. They left that perception to become reality and it has been their undoing.
Norman Doyle and Loyola Hearn represent a style of politics long since mouldering in the ground.
It remains now for someone else to write the epitaph.
This has been merely a political autopsy.
