Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Valarie..."kids say the darndest things...."

Valarie was waxing philosophically this morning when she took a stab at David Carver...“My philosophy with a lot of things has always been — you get more flies with honey than vinegar and I guess that kind of sums it up,’’.... so I took a real close look at Valerie's comments in the following interview in the Guardian. I thought I might take a stab at some philosophy to explain her comments but I didn't know where to start... I thought about Art Linkletter's "Kids Say The Darndest Things" ....but the kids were usually "spewing wisdom" which really didn't apply here so I moved on to an old Bob Marley tune "I shot the Sheriff" but in this case the Deputy is still walking around..... LOOK, the bottom line is I'm no philosopher and I doubt if I could fine a quote to summarize her comments but I do know this Valarie... whatever way you try to explain it the bottom line is your Department squandered $400,000.00 that comes out of taxpayers’ pockets.... "Houston, We’ve Got A Problem".....

Minister willing to work with concert promoter despite criticisms
DAVE STEWART
The Guardian

the following is part of Valerie Docherty's comments...

......The province went in a different direction this year, backing a concert Carver was not involved in. Alanis Morissette headlined a show in Alexandra. While the site got rave reviews it didn’t draw nearly as many people as government hoped it would. The province contributed a $100,000 grant to the show plus an additional $400,000 in bridge financing, bringing the total commitment to $500,000. “Of that, $100,000 was a forgivable grant and the other they are paying back $100,000 of the $400,000 bridge loan so the cost to government, over and above what was planned, is $300,000 that is being looked after by my department so taxpayers are not going to have to . . . we’re not going to have to find another $300,000 somewhere else.’’...

For the complete text of the story http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=191403&sc=98

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does Prima Donna come to mind?

Anonymous said...

She said "$300,000 (of) that is being looked after by my department so taxpayers are not going to have to . . "

Who for heaven's sake does she think stumps up for our (not her) Tourism Department's budget? Or does she really think the money is hers and Melissa's to squander.

Houston, we do indeed have a problem.

Anonymous said...

First I just commented in the Guardian, so I won't repeat here. Before throwing too many barbs I'd want to make sure the reporter got the story correct because if he did I would be concerned about a public official saying the taxpayers didn't lose anything since it is the tax money that was used....? One way or another the taxpayer is always affected either directly or indirectly (i.e. in kind services, infrastructure costs, etc...).

Good luck to whatever promoter wants to tackle 2009.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone say Immigrant Investor Fund.
I understand the money for this event came from the Immigrant Fund.
Which is why when the Minister was cornered by the media she said she would find the money elsewhere and taxpayers money wouldn't be used.

I am not so sure this may have been the smartest move on the part of the Minister with so many and dirty revelations coming down about the Immigrant Investor Fund.

Tim Banks said...

I posted a comment from Anonymous who believes that PNP's paid for the concert but I find that hard to believe and I'll probably not post anymore comments on this related to PNP's until there is an acknowledgement from some official that they were indeed used..

Anonymous said...

What's still so shocking in all of this is that the Dept of Tourism has no problems dishing out that kind of cash, not care about it being paid back, and not care about taking the people that lost that money to task-- and yet they don't give Old Home Week a penny. The largest tourism draw on PEI gets put out to pasture by the Dept of Tourism-- not even a free Visitor's Guide ad-- and yet organizers to a complete waste of a concert get a Brinks truck to play with. It makes absolutely no cents-- I mean sense.

Anonymous said...

In the interest of transparency I think it would help for the Tourism Dept. to show their 2009 business plan (it could just be a summary and shouldn't include salaries as I don't think anything should be micromanaged). Of the non-salary budget....

What % toward media promotions/ads/publications (print, radio, TV, Web), % toward established events, % to one-time promotions (i.e. Canada Games, concerts, contests-maybe a free trip to PEI for a family of 4) and then manage the budget to that and measure the results and then adjust the following year.

I know that means accountability and justification, but it appears those could be missing elements here from everything I've read.