John Hogan: Human Shield

and other tales from the political Nether-Land

In March, Tom Osborne told Andrew Furey that he was quitting politics.

Andrew asked Tom to stay a bit longer so Andrew could get ready and sort out details like who’d replace Tom.

Four months after Osborne handed in his resignation and four days after Tom actually walked out the door as health minister, the best Furey could do was name beleaguered justice minister John Hogan as the interim health minister on top of his job in justice with no sign when Furey might get around to sorting out who would be health minister permanently.

This is the way our government doesn’t work.

The one exclusive power the Premier has above all the other powers that go with the job and the one that drives everything else is the power to name who goes into cabinet and what job that person gets.

If there’s one job the Premier must always be ready to do, naming the members of cabinet and giving them the job they are to do is it.

So whether a cabinet minister quits to spend time with the family, gets hit by a bus, or is caught in a scandal, the Premier and the Premier’s senior team must be always ready to name the team and then wrangle it right away. Sometimes it comes at you in a hurry. Sometimes you can plan changes yourself. Sometimes you get the gift that Andrew Furey and his crew had where someone wants to go but will wait weeks to let you control the exit.

And they still couldn’t figure it out.

A Premier that cannot do that one basic job cannot do anything.

There was plenty of speculation among the political chatterati about a shuffle. Most of the spec involved finance minister Siobhan Coady, infrastructure boss John Abbott, and Bernie Davis, the enviro guy. That would be a mini cabinet shuffle in advance of a fall general election, which would give the three a chance to learn the new jobs and maybe let the government roll out some new fresh ideas to replace the old fresh ideas they’d not be able to get done since 2020.

Other spec put Pat Parfrey, the deputy health leprechaun, in as minister and as a candidate. That one would actually be politically cool since you could announce both the new minister *and* the by-election to give him a seat in the one breath. There are no down sides to it. None. Plus, you’d immediately give the best possible boost to your candidate. Whoever the Liberals finally push in front of voters - despite internal disquiet with him, the Liberal candidate-finders have turned up no one except the wildly unimpressive Jamie Korab - it’s not clear at all the Liberals will have an easy ride in Waterford Valley. A decent Pea Sea candidate could take the seat and a strong candidate would pretty much lock the thing up easily for the Blue Team.

But none of that happened.

Instead, there’s Hogan who is health minister in name only. The announcement on Monday prompted a few chuckles, a lot of head-shaking, and more than a bit of pushback publicly from observers. Hogan’s a bright guy but he’s had a raft of fumbles and gaffes, the last of which was not only dumb to begin with but was made worse by the klutzy responses to the heavy criticism Hogan got. When he won his seat in 2021, Hogan may well have thought he’d be a logical choice to replace Furey when he inevitably bailed, but these days Hogan is likely eyeing the exit doors as so many of his cabinet colleagues are also doing. Hogan wouldn’t get a pension though so unless he really doesn’t need the cash, Hogan would have to run again and get re-elected before he'd qualify. Not really an inviting re-election slogan, though: re-elect me so I gets me pension.

What’s going to happen to the health ministry, cabinet, or the election isn’t clear but Furey’s pattern would suggest there’ll be a by-election called for Waterford Valley in September while Hogan stands in. Furey may well take the full time he has under the law - 60 days - to make the call, which would put the voting day in late September or literally the first coupe of days in October. There’d be no fall election since the Liberals don’t really have any excuse to go to the polls and they’ll have nothing to celebrate like a deal with Quebec or Ottawa. That would push the election-spec date off to the spring sometime, as long as the provincial Liberals can get to the polls before Team Justin bursts into flames spontaneously.

Everything is short-term and tactical with Furey's crowd. They seem to spend more time planning Furey’s next overseas trip and arguing among themselves as to who gets to ride along with Furey on his extended farewell tour than actually leading the province.

And that means the psychological impact of a Liberal defeat in Waterford Valley will be even greater than the loss in Fogo was. And that apparently had them hiding sharp objects, shoe laces, rope, or cords, and screwing windows closed to cut down the risk of self-harm.

Watch out then for who the Pea Seas pick. They will set the election agenda even if the Pea Seas are also not ready any more than the Liberals are. Even the spring would be too soon a general election if Waterford Valley goes Blue. And overall, as noted here a while ago, the longer Furey delays an election, the worse his position gets as the Pea Seas will almost inevitably get better. Furey’s crowd, meanwhile, are much the same as they were four years ago. They are certainly not getting any stronger.

As for John Hogan, his new job is to take it in the noggin, neck, or ‘nads whenever something goes wrong in health. That’s it. Andrew Furey is the real health minister. Hogan is Justin Long in Dodgeball. Got into politics thinking he would be Premier. Been a Furey man from before Furey had the job. Discovered quickly the job is harder than it looked and having thrown a few wrenches full force into his own face is no longer optimistic. Andrew Furey’s incumbency starts to look like that of the Other Political Justin or Rishi Sunak.

Meanwhile …