August 2001
by Barry Stagg
Now, this is where the trouble starts for Dr. Tobin. The Sun felt obliged in a recent edition
(Sunday June 17) to rate the performance of the federal cabinet, Dr. Tobin included. It would be
unfair to deprive the Downhomer readership of the chance to share the Sun's assessment of the
good minister/doctor, so here is the report on him as penned by the Sun's Ottawa bureau chief,
Anne Dawson:
" Brian Tobin- Showboat from Newfoundland. All pomp and no substance.
He's showering corporate Canada with cash in hopes it will fill his
leadership war chest come race time. Cabinet and caucus colleagues
despise him, but liked by PM. Blowhard for Chretien over Shawinigate
affair. Report Card Mark, F"
The funny thing is that none of the items mentioned so subtly by the newspaper made it into the press release put out by St. FX to announce the granting of the degree to the worthy minister in May. The luckless press people in Antigonish might have spiced up their report on the honouree with some of the tidbits from the Sun. Perhaps a further release from the university may elaborate on the current state of its now distinguished degree holder. Given Dr. Tobin's opposition to the monarchy, maybe the press people should wait until Tobin, doctorate and all, either becomes prime minister or is invested with the title of Canada's first president, once the Liberals are able to send the Queen packing and can boot Adrienne Clarkson out of the Governor-General's stall.
The consensus in the field is that Tobin, LLD has thrown his provincial Liberals to the wolves as manifested by Danny Williams, cable king and chief Tory lupine . Liberal premier Roger Grimes is doubtlessly and acutely aware of this. Consignment to the detritus pile of provincial politics is hardly the goal of this fellow from Grand Falls who has the advantage of a few university degrees actually earned as opposed to conferred by edict. There has even been idle speculation, attributable likely to Liberal dementia, that Tobin made a tacit political deal to leave his Newfoundland fiefdom to Williams in some sort of medieval pact. Even Tobin, wrapped in the thrall of megalomania, could not contemplate such a foolish deal. Williams, with his deep Tory political roots, knows better. The people of Newfoundland will decide who replaces the Liberals up at the Confederation Building, based on something about there being wisdom in the crowd.
Tobin's attempt at setting up Grimes as a straw man to take the fall for his own abandonment of Newfoundland is an abject failure if it ever was anything other than a figment of the sometimes fevered Newfoundland political imagination. Former cabinet heavyweights Paul Dicks and John Efford have signalled their distaste for Tobin's political tactics by already touting their support for Paul Martin in the phantom race for the crown of King Jean of Shawinigan. Perhaps they too find the thought of King Brian too ridiculous to even contemplate any longer than it takes them to tally up Dr. Tobin's pension take from St. John's and Ottawa. Then again, that is a bad analogy since counting up Tobin's pension dollars might take a while. Anyway, you get the picture.
A recommendation to the Tobin braintrust is that they select some sort of theme for the wouldbe prime minister and perpetual diner at the public trough. An off the shelf movie theme is Monty Python's 1979 classic 'Life of Brian' . Everything that is attractive about this match between the English comics and Dr. Tobin is summed up in the movie's plot line as described by our friends at the Internet Movie Database: "Brian is born on the original Christmas, in the stable next door. He spends his life being mistaken for a messiah."
That's enough free campaign advice for now.