Trash Week

GovSpeak is another language. Reality, another concept

When GNL news releases come from

Some people asked me in June what Pat Parfrey was doing as a deputy minister of health transformation in the provincial government’s Executive Council office.

Frig-all to do with health care said me. Used more colourful language, of course.

F*ck all to do with health care, or transformation for that matter.

The word transformation is the give-away. Useless political jargon that gets used only because the current seat-warmer in the Premier’s Office likes it a lot. Sounds spiffy or whatever the kids are saying these days for cool, hip, with-it. Sounds good so therefore it is perfect for the most carefully manufactured image ever to be Premier in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The result is that you will see the word transformation at least once in anything about Andrew Furey or anything he says. Yer average Russkie don’t take a dump, son, without a plan, and Andy Furey don’t cop a squat without transforming the universe in the process. That’s how much of a big ideas strategy kinda leadership words spoutin’ person Furey is.

All the same, third year in office and so far Furey has yet to show us he could successfully change his socks, let alone manage something as potentially transformative an experience as switching from tighty-whities to boxies or - *audible gasp* from the audience - the thong. So, fundamentally changing the direction of the province or even just the government would be out of the question. Not do-able. So Andrew and his posse just talk about change instead.

Even if that were not true, making Parfrey a deputy minister in the central government agency around the Cabinet is a sure sign Parfrey doesn’t have a real job.

Anyone who has any actual responsibility for doing anything with health care in this province works for the health department.

Brutally simple.

True when John Puddister was the health commissioner in the 1930s and 1940s.

True when Edward Roberts had the gig.

True for John Collins, Chris Decker, Jerome! Kennedy, and certainly true when John Haggie was health minister a few months ago.

Always true: not in health, not doing anything meaningful with health.

That’s an Iron Law of government in Newfoundland and Labrador.