A6

Stephen Llewellyn

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New Brunswick Health Minister Mary Schryer gets an A for staying on message during the announcement of the wage deal with physicians Wednesday.

Schryer had the unenviable task of facing the media and trying to explain why a four-year agreement with a 3.75 per cent wage hike each year was a financial disaster in April but is now a win-win situation just because a two-year wage freeze is tacked on the end.

Keep in mind the doctors offered that wage freeze back in the spring.

Reporters tried to get Schryer to clarify but she just let the difficult questions flow serenely around her like a bridge pier in the middle of the St. John River.

Here's a little bit of the scrum.

The Political Notebook: "Basically the government caved in and gave the doctors what they wanted."

Schryer: "We've always said that we were open to negotiations."

The Political Notebook: "What political damage do you think your government suffered in this dispute?"

Schryer: "I think what we have here today is, as I said, we've got an agreement here. This government has a great working relationship with the doctors."

Nice.

And when a CBC reporter asked about former Health minister Mike Murphy's comment in the spring that if the tentative agreement was OK'd, the expense might force the government to close some hospitals?

"I am not privy to what the former minister might have or might not have said," answered Schryer.

Well, since he said it on the record, everyone else in New Brunswick is privy to it, but never mind.

The minister's communications staff must be very proud.

***

Oct. 14 was Fredericton Mayor Brad Woodside's birthday.

Premier Shawn Graham didn't have any trouble finding a birthday present for the long-serving mayor.

Oct. 14, of course, was the day the design of the Fredericton campus of the New Brunswick Community College was unveiled by the province at the Wu Conference Centre.

Graham cited the mayor's birthday during the ceremony.

A new community college campus was a Liberal election promise in 2006.

But Graham said Woodside wasn't getting a birthday kiss.

That's in reference to Woodside keeping his promise to buzz the premier when the community college funding was made official back in June.

One picture on the front page of The Daily Gleaner showing the two smooching was enough, said the premier with mock sternness.

Happy 61st, your worship.

***

Look out, Roger Duguay.

There could be a secret leadership contender for the New Brunswick New Democratic Party lurking right here in Fredericton.

It turns out that when Social Development Minister Kelly Lamrock, the Liberal MLA for Fredericton-Fort Nashwaak, was a youngster, he stayed up late to watch a political debate involving former federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent and Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

He said he was captivated by Broadbent's passion for issues. The NDP party was fundraising at the time.

"There I was, I was nine years old and I took my crisp $1 bill and mailed it off to Ed Broadbent," said Lamrock. "He wrote back."

He said he wrote to Broadbent annually for five years and the NDP leader responded each year.

"Actually, Ed Broadbent made me want to go into politics," said Lamrock.

He told that story Monday at the Wu Conference Centre where Broadbent was giving a speech on poverty.

***

The Opposition is scoring lots of political points with its claim that the Graham government is flip-flopping on important issues such as early French immersion, post-secondary education reform and, most recently, on doctors' salaries.

But University of New Brunswick political science Prof. Don Desserud suggested this week that the more often the Liberals climb down from a controversial policy the less political damage they suffer.

That's because the public is getting used to seeing the government do an about-face, he said in an interview.

Desserud also said it was smarter for the government to back down on the confrontation with the doctors than continue to risk the public's wrath if New Brunswick's health care was damaged by the dispute.

But it isn't going to be seen as a win for the government, he predicted.

"They are not going to gain votes this way," said Desserud. "That is their problem right now."

The Political Notebook is compiled by staff writer Stephen Llewellyn with the assistance this week from staff writer Shawn Berry. The Notebook runs every Friday and comments are welcome at llewellyn.stephen@dailygleaner.com.