Premier Andrew Furey is calling his team the “changemakers,” however the leader of the official opposition isn’t buying into that.
Yesterday, Furey shuffled around the majority of portfolios, only Health Minister John Haggie kept his role. As well, three new cabinet ministers were sworn in.
Ches Crosbie says when he heard the “Changemakers” moniker he had to think twice because, collectively, those in the cabinet have been the “faces of five years of Liberal patronage, corruption, and economic mismanagement.” He says Furey will have to be “something of a superman” to fix those issues.
Crosbie continues that Furey had a shallow talent pool to work with in choosing his cabinet, and we will see how those decisions work over time.
From left to right: Elvis Loveless, Sarah Stoodley, and Derek Bennett – The three new faces in Premier Furey’s cabinet.
Crosbie contends that we have not yet seen a concrete plan from Furey and in the immediate future, the Premier has to deal with “chaos” in the educational system, our financial woes, and how to keep our offshore from drifting away.
He likens these issues to gaping, bleeding holes that need patches on them, and calls on the Premier to tell us his plan.
NDP leader Allison Coffin echoes many of the same sentiments, saying we need to see something tangible from government.
Coffin says time is ticking away and we need to get something in place quickly. Interim supply runs out at the end of September and the NDP has said they will not be supporting another interim supply bill, so we need to have a proper budget in place.
According to Coffin, in order for the budget to work the government needs to have a plan.
For example, she says government keeps saying that we will work with Ottawa and they will be a player. She asks, “a player in what?” She says we need to have a vision of where we are going in order to have a good budget.
