Bad Timing

It's been the buzz around office water coolers and coffee shops for the past few days. The NDP are imploding and it's all happening in public. It is a sad turn of affairs for a party that plays an important role in the Province. But the worst of it all is the serious case of bad timing involved. It's not their fault, I'm sure they didn't plan a public meltdown that would be at the top of every newswire, but thats exactly what happened. Unfortunately it has distracted most everyone from a far more important story.

The CBC's Adam Walsh broke this story about a Government report completed over two years ago regarding various forms of sexual exploitation. The real story was that the report was never released, even though it makes some significant recommendations. Government claimed that they didn't release the report because just the simple knowledge that research was happening would put people at risk. You can see more of the ridiculous comments by the Minister and the Deputy Police Chief here.

Over at The Sir Robert Bond Papers there's some good commentary on why the Governments position is so hard to swallow. The bottom line is that most people, including some of those interviewed for the report and others who work in that sector feel that at the very lest the recommendations for the report should be made public. How else can we expect change to happen?

It appears to be another case of a "trust us, we know what we're doing" style of government. The most unfortunate part of this is the timing of the breaking story. Even with the weight of this story to stay in the news for a couple of days the NDP collapse is still getting top billing. It's not surprising but it is unfortunate.