Kim and Jeannot tie the knot
It’s enough to bring tears to your eyes.
Former Tory Miramichi Centre MLA Kim Jardine was married to her beau Jeannot Volpe last weekend in a low-key ceremony consisting mostly of family.
Jardine was elected to the legislature in 1999 and was made minister of environment and local government during Bernard Lord’s first mandate as premier. Jardine was defeated in 2003 by Liberal John Foran.
Volpe now sits as Interim Opposition Leader and has several cabinet portfolios under his belt, including Minister of Finance. He’s now opposition critic for areas of interest related to finance.
Here’s where things get interesting.
Soon after Jardine’s defeat in 2003, she got a swanky job at NB Power in Fredericton.
I was assigned to report on the story at the time.
The official at NB Power I questioned said Jardine was the only one interviewed for the created-out-of-thin-air middle management job. A very high paying job, at that.
There wasn’t even a short-list of applicants for the position. Just one name.
Kim Jardine.
Her qualifications for this job?
The NB Power official said she had lots, being a former cabinet minister.
Oh really? Well, lets be honest here. Being a politician is not a qualification in and of itself.
Just because enough people mark enough X’s next to their name that they get elected doesn’t mean a candidate knows about anything. That’s the beauty of democracy.
You don’t even have to know how to tie your own shoes in this system of government. You just need one more vote than the other guy, who might be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist, and you’re elected. When you’re elected, there’s only so many members of caucus and the government needs X amount of people to be ministers. That’s all there is to it.
There’s more.
A Fredericton political insider told me Volpe and Jardine had been seeing each other socially in 2003.
A high paying job at NB Power for a former cabinet minister in a relationship with the then finance minister of New Brunswick? A job that didn’t exist a week before, a job no one else was interviewed for, a job that pays a hell of a lot more than the embroidery business she ran before her political life.
Coincidence? Or patronage appointment?
Decide for yourself. But you’d have to blind if you couldn’t read the writing on that wall.
Not that it matters.
It’s all water over the hydro dam now.
It’s just another one of those things we hear about, get upset by and forget the next day. There’ll be something new rearing it’s ugly head tomorrow. You can bank on it.
Gotta love New Brunswick politics, eh?
Former Tory Miramichi Centre MLA Kim Jardine was married to her beau Jeannot Volpe last weekend in a low-key ceremony consisting mostly of family.
Jardine was elected to the legislature in 1999 and was made minister of environment and local government during Bernard Lord’s first mandate as premier. Jardine was defeated in 2003 by Liberal John Foran.
Volpe now sits as Interim Opposition Leader and has several cabinet portfolios under his belt, including Minister of Finance. He’s now opposition critic for areas of interest related to finance.
Here’s where things get interesting.
Soon after Jardine’s defeat in 2003, she got a swanky job at NB Power in Fredericton.
I was assigned to report on the story at the time.
The official at NB Power I questioned said Jardine was the only one interviewed for the created-out-of-thin-air middle management job. A very high paying job, at that.
There wasn’t even a short-list of applicants for the position. Just one name.
Kim Jardine.
Her qualifications for this job?
The NB Power official said she had lots, being a former cabinet minister.
Oh really? Well, lets be honest here. Being a politician is not a qualification in and of itself.
Just because enough people mark enough X’s next to their name that they get elected doesn’t mean a candidate knows about anything. That’s the beauty of democracy.
You don’t even have to know how to tie your own shoes in this system of government. You just need one more vote than the other guy, who might be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist, and you’re elected. When you’re elected, there’s only so many members of caucus and the government needs X amount of people to be ministers. That’s all there is to it.
There’s more.
A Fredericton political insider told me Volpe and Jardine had been seeing each other socially in 2003.
A high paying job at NB Power for a former cabinet minister in a relationship with the then finance minister of New Brunswick? A job that didn’t exist a week before, a job no one else was interviewed for, a job that pays a hell of a lot more than the embroidery business she ran before her political life.
Coincidence? Or patronage appointment?
Decide for yourself. But you’d have to blind if you couldn’t read the writing on that wall.
Not that it matters.
It’s all water over the hydro dam now.
It’s just another one of those things we hear about, get upset by and forget the next day. There’ll be something new rearing it’s ugly head tomorrow. You can bank on it.
Gotta love New Brunswick politics, eh?
posted by Street Wise Guy | 12:35 AM
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