Tignish-Palmer Road MLA Hal Perry is stepping down as leader of the Opposition.
In an interview with The Guardian this morning, Perry said there has been too much focus on the divisions within the Progressive Conservative party and he wants to shift that focus back onto issues of concern for Islanders.
“I’m making a conscious decision on behalf of my party and on behalf of all Islanders’ best interests, to step aside,” Perry told The Guardian this morning.
“If we’re going to move forward, we have to have stability. So I feel that by my stepping aside, it will take away hopefully from our internal issues and put the real issues to the forefront.”
The party has been in a state of disarray for months as internal squabbles over leadership have continuously boiled into public view.
After former leader Olive Crane resigned, the party’s divisions became even more apparent when Perry took over as Opposition leader, with majority support of three of the five Tory MLAs, while Georgetown-St. Peters MLA Steven Myers was chosen as interim party leader by the majority of the PC executive and caucus.
“I’m making a conscious decision on behalf of my party and on behalf of all Islanders’ best interests, to step aside,” - Hal Perry, Tignish-Palmer Road MLA
This created an unprecedented and confusing situation with two elected MLAs within the same caucus splitting leadership roles that are usually filled by one person.
Then late last week, PC president Blake Doyle sent a letter to the speaker of the legislature, Carolyn Bertram, asking her to recognize Myers as Opposition leader. He said the party had obtained a legal opinion saying the leader of the party should rightfully hold this title.
Bertram released a statement saying she would not get involved in party politics.
Perry said he thought long and hard about the situation over the weekend and came to the conclusion last evening stepping aside was the only way the party could move beyond its current struggles.
The Guardian will have more on this story later and full details in the print edition of the newspaper on Tuesday.
Taxpayers have been scammed on many things in this province. But, to connect our tax money to pnps, some examples would be it is our tax monies that pay for legal fees to try to stop the release of the list of the pnp; the costs of the multiple trips by many involved in government and those connected, premier and so on to recruit Chinese immigrants and provide pnp money; the legal fees for the lawsuits that have been placed in regards to not following through on what the government was required to do, like provide english lessons for the 50,000 they paid, tax monies to fund those lessons since the pnp money is gone; and the list goes on. Then for the federal taxes, the costs of investigations and having government be told to stop selling visas. Losts of lost money from immigrants, lost money from taxpayers, But, of course, lots of money in the pockets of the corrupt thieves.