Conservative MLA Steven Myers has landed on the provincial scene with a bang not usually associated with newcomers to politics. His use of a four-letter word on election night has attracted the ire of Premier Robert Ghiz and raised more than a few eyebrows across the province.
Not long after he won election Monday night in District 2, Georgetown-St. Peters, a Guardian reporter asked him about the campaign. “My win had more to do with the premier,” Myers said. “I was hearing at the door people hate Robert Ghiz and I believed them and they showed that tonight.”
In the cold light of dawn, and more importantly in print in the newspaper, the comment stood out as being a bit over the top. Perhaps some people reading it thought it was simply a flippant comment made in the heat of the moment. They likely assumed that Mr. Myers didn’t actually mean it.
But when he was contacted Tuesday and asked about using the word, Mr. Myers said he was making no apologies. He said he was just repeating what he was hearing at the doors.
“I’m not going to apologize for it,” said Mr. Myers. “It’s the truth. If his (Premier Ghiz) feelings are hurt over that I guess he’ll have to live with it.”
Premier Robert Ghiz has quite rightly taken great umbrage with the use of the word. He fears such comments could set the course on how politics will be played out on the Island in the coming months. He is still miffed at Conservative Leader Olive Crane’s remark about him during a campaign leaders’ debate. She said he was a disgrace in his handling of the Provincial Nominee Program.
“We’re Islanders. We respect one another. I respect the role of the opposition. I really hope that’s not the approach they are going to take. If they do, there is nothing I can do about it but it would be unfortunate,” said the premier.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Myers used the word in the first place, but it is especially unfortunate he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity the next day to either retract the comment or put it in context.
Islanders, indeed Canadians in general, are fed up with politicians ranting and raving at each other in a disrespect manner. Such schoolyard antics serve only to turn people off politics at a time when the opposite is needed. While voter turnout on Monday was still high at 77 per cent, it was below the 84 per cent who voted in 2007. There are no doubt a number of reasons why voter turnout was down, but one of them could be the negative tone of the campaign.
Mr. Myers won his seat fair and square and hopefully he will prove to be a worthy representative for his constituents. But he did them no service on Monday night when he said they hate the premier.
As a matter of fact, if he checks the election results he will see that more than 40 per cent of the voters in District 2 actually voted for Mr. Ghiz. Does that mean the 53 per cent who voted PC also hate the 40 per cent who voted Liberal? Of course not.
Mr. Myers’ made a poor choice of words. Hopefully he will come to realize that and life will move on.
So who slashed tires and sawed down signs and told employees not to communicate with the media(which the media did not investigate yet always claim to be the champions of free speech LOL)? Remember how FORMER minister Campbell et al treated Hon Olive Crane in the legislature? Je me souvien.