‘I’m very happy with his leadership’
Cape Breton PC MLAs defend party leader Baillie.
If a former Progressive Conservative MLA wanted to express his displeasure at the leadership of Jamie Baillie, there are more productive ways to do so than by writing letters to the editor, say two Cape Breton MLAs.
Alfie MacLeod, MLA for Sydney River- Mira- Louisbourg, and Eddie Orrell, MLA for Northside-Westmount, were responding to a letter to the editor sent to several media outlets, including the Cape Breton Post, recently by Cecil O’Donnell, who represented Shelburne for the Progressive Conservatives from 1999- 2006.
“I am afraid unless something is done soon, the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party will be looking to form government from the left field bleachers for years to come, unless current leader Jamie Baillie finally takes an exceptionally hard look at the polls and realizes he has to resign,” O’Donnell wrote.
The recent Corporate Research Associates poll that prompted O’Donnell’s letter, released March 11, indicated the Liberals were leading with 56 per cent support, 33 percentage points over the PCs, with Baillie’s personal popularity at 15 per cent compared to Premier Stephen McNeil’s 41 per cent.
“Everybody’s entitled to their opinion, and this is one man’s opinion,” MacLeod said in a phone interview Thursday.
“I think there are a lot more important issues on the go right now. If people want to talk about what’s affecting this province, we should be talking about the rail line here in Cape Breton, the Yarmouth ferry, what’s taking place with pharmacare.”
Orrell said as a former party MLA, O’Donnell should understand what it is like to lead a party and be under constant public scrutiny.
“To be one of us, to scrutinize our own, I think that’s a horrible thing. For the job that Jamie’s been doing and that we as the official opposition has been doing, I think we’ve been doing a commendable job the last two years,” Orrell said, adding he believes the party has been particularly strong in opposing the government’s moves on issues such as the film tax credit. “If (O’Donnell is) such a strong Conservative as he says he is in that letter, he should have come forward to us. He had ample opportunity. I’ve been at four or five AGMs now… I’ve never met the man.”
He added his own constituents are more concerned about the lack of jobs in rural Nova Scotia, including the recent loss of jobs at the Saputo plant, than the current state of the PC party. “I’m very happy with his leadership ,” Orrell said.
Both Orrell and MacLeod noted that the winds of change can strike suddenly in politics in Canada. “I’m a little surprised that Cecil chose this route rather than coming to the annual meeting in February and voicing his concerns there where people would have a chance to discuss it with him,” said MacLeod.
The island’s third PC MLA, Inverness MLA Allan MacMaster, was in his constituency Thursday and could not be reached for comment by deadline.
Baillie has led the party since 2010.
In an interview with TC Media, Baillie shrugged off O’Donnell’s remarks.
“In politics you have to have a thick skin. What matters most is doing the things you most believe in and to avoid being distracted by things like this,” he said.