NEW DOCUMENTS RAISE MORE QUESTIONS

E-mail and notes prepared for Education Minister Joan Burke seem to show that she was indeed prepared to vet two candidates for President of Memorial University not promote the province to the candidates as indicated by the Premier.

The documents were obtained under the provincial access to information legislation by the opposition liberals.

It would appear that the Chair of the Board of Regents felt the search process had concluded and that these meetings were formalities. Gil Dalton was anxious to have the meetings and feared of loosing the candidates. An e-mail to the Minister of Education from her Deputy Minister Rebecca Roome indicated that the Premier's Chief of Staff had spoken with Minister Burke about the parameters of the "chats." It does appear that Department of Education officials were initially preparing the minister for a chat or an informal discussion.

This file continues to get messier with each passing revelation. There has to be a point where the Premier has to say enough is enough and shake things up. This issue is not going away nor is the damage done to the universities national and international reputation.  It is galling to hear commentators and communications staff suggest that those of us that continue to comment about this issue are some how to blame for making it difficult to recruit a new candidate.

Lets face it who would want to come into this mess at the moment.  Once again, hire the University's first choice and move on.