In each and every political battle that this Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) has engaged in since coming to office in 2012, if they could not get you to ‘go along’ with whatever they were proposing; if you stood your ground, thought for yourself and challenged them, they then resorted to that which that had normally worked for them in the past, threats, insults and intimidation. 

“Mitchell warns activist could be imprisoned.” –The Tribune

Excerpt from this article; “Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell yesterday slammed Save the Bays Director Fred Smith for threatening to commit certain MP’s to prison, warning he outspoken attorney that such actions are grounds for ‘contempt of Parliament’ and that he could find himself faced with imprisonment.

Mr. Mitchell, in a statement criticized Mr. Smith QC, for seeking to offend the privileges of members of Parliament. “Mr. Mitchell said no one in the ‘21^st century’ would allow a lawyer with half baked ideas to set aside the hard won privileges which exist for the ultimate protection of the public.”

“……for the ultimate protection of the public.”? Really?! Because from my point of view it would appear that Minister Mitchell and the rest of this Cabinet colleagues now seek to invoke one privilege to violate another privilege, thereby violating the protection of several members of the public and someone needs to clue him in on the fact that life does not work that way, well not in the real world just in one of the Ministers making.

During the past week both Jerome Fitzgerald and Leslie Miller have threatened to release each and every email and financial report that they have obtained about the Save The Bays organization, as Shane Gibson threatened the week before, in an effort to prove that this environmental group is really a political organization with ambitions of destabilizing the present Progressive Liberal Party government; the only problem is that the emails and financial statements were never formally or legally released to these two men and all are private information/data that Jerome Fitzgerald claims to have found in his ‘political garbage can’, really?  With that in mind this information should be viewed as nothing more than ‘salacious, unsupported gossip’ which the minister is simply seeking to get in through the back door that which should never have been allowed through the front door.  Now, as Save the Bays has seemed to have obtained an injunction from a court of law that ‘seeks to restrain everyone and anyone and persons unknown from repeating information regarding emails related to Save the Bays’, and even with this injunction in place Minister Mitchell has already suggested in a letter to Kendall Major, Speaker of the House, that he will not abide by it and further suggests that such an act by Fred Smith QC is tantamount to ‘contempt of Parliament’ and he would seek have Fred Smith and any others jailed for not affording him the privilege of violating another person’s privilege of the right to privacy, any others would included the Data Protection Commissioner, by the way.

Simply put, Fred Mitchell has again proven that he is a mere tired, semi-delusional autocrat and a continuing threat to our democracy and to law and order as he now seeks to go against a court’s ruling and the advice given to him by the Data Commissioner about using another’s personal information/data that is obtained by questionable means and release more private information of others.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is within their nature.

END