You shall know them by their self-righteousness

By Ivan Morgan

Okay, I know this is a tempest in a touristy made-in-China teapot with a colourful outport scene on it, but it’s more than just a new tourism minister being roasted by her “Critic.”

There was a news story recently stating that newly minted PC MHA and Tourism Minister Andrea Barbour wiped her social media accounts clean. #whatever

Some background. I have been following Ms. Barbour on TikTok for quite a while. I was a fan. Her posts were cheery, fun and she came across as a lovely person. I enjoyed her channel. I thought she was very creative and bold, embarking out on an entirely new media platform. No doubt it was vital in getting her elected. She should be proud of it.

Instead, she deleted it all. There were stories she may have said something politically incorrect in one of her posts. That she had to turn her back on her work, shows the rest of us the grubby side of politics.
Naturally her “critics” don’t think they are grubby. They see themselves as politically correct, high-minded social warriors ever vigilant for anyone speaking Wrongthink, ready to pounce with righteous zeal.
Like I said, grubby.

Too harsh? I have some experience in this. A person near and dear to me was contacted many years ago by a national organization and told she had won their annual award for her work. A rival organization (or at least an organization that thought they were more deserving) scrolled through her Facebook account, found a mild statement she had made several years previously, sent it to the national organization who chose not to give her the award. She was never asked what she had meant, never given a chance to defend herself. Just dumped.

Grubby.

Barbour says she scrubbed her account because she wanted to focus more on her new role in politics. To that I say nonsense. My guess is she was told to scrub it, because there are nasty little partisan communications trolls in the other two parties who will comb those accounts and if they think they have found “dirt” then they will self-righteously make it public with manufactured outrage to damage their opponent.

Grubby.

In this case the critic was another newly minted Liberal MHA, Bettina Ford. I don’t know her and I always give everyone the benefit of the doubt. My guess is some backroom weasel put her up to this. If she did do this of her own accord shame on her, but I suspect the shame belongs to some invisible unelected toad. Two rookie MHAs being used as nasty backbiting marionettes.

My guess is they are both better people than that. I think they should go out for a coffee together and compare notes, ask each other if that’s what they want to do for the next four years, if that’s the kind of politicians they want to be, if that’s why they ran for office.

This nonsense has to stop. We hired politicians to work on serious issues, and this is what we get? My advice to other MHAs asked to comment on this grubby story is to walk away or tell the reporter not to waste their time and resources on nasty, self-righteous political sniping.

As a side note to the trolls who were responsible for this; why don’t you pick on someone your own size. I have been a columnist for over 30 years. Imagine the shocking nonsense I have said in print! I don’t remember myself (I have trouble remembering what I wrote last month), but I expect you’d have a field day. Comb through my stuff and I bet you will find no end of questionable material. Copy it and send it the media – CBC comes to mind – so they can self-righteously demand my firing or resignation.

I have been around politics for over half a century. Do your grubby worst.

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com