Fredericton — Education Minister Dominic Cardy called an unusual news conference on Nov. 1 that many thought would update the public on the province’s plan for home-based learning.
Unfortunately, the minister had nothing substantial to add, which left many confused about the purpose of the live-streaming news conference.
The one highlight from the briefing came when Cardy read his personal cell phone number out (506-238-5550) so that union leader Sandy Harding would call him to work on planned school closures during the strike.
Following Cardy’s announcement, several reporters asked if Cardy has the authority to negotiate with the union on behalf of the government, but it became clear that Cardy had no influence over the negotiations at all.
The Manatee reached out to Harding to ask whether she planned on calling Cardy to work on a plan for rotating school closures.
“Call that creep? You have to be kidding me!” she exclaimed. “We met at a CUPE event when he was the leader of the NDP and still cared about collective bargaining. He was nice, but after the week was over he began calling me constantly. I made it clear that I wasn’t interested in him, but he wouldn’t stop. Eventually I had to change my number. He has no authority to negotiate with us, he’s just looking for a sleazy way to get my number again.”
Shocked by this information, we arranged an interview with Cardy, who seemed uncomfortably excited to talk about the CUPE negotiations until we revealed what we learned from Harding.
“You can’t just blindly trust everything you read on Facebook, you know!” he said. “I’m sick and tired of the alt-right trying to tarnish my fine reputation! I believe in hard facts and the facts are that Sandy Harding misplaced my number a few years ago! You guys need grow up and stop publishing lies!”
After the interview, Premier Blaine Higgs was asked whether Cardy’s remarks could hurt the ongoing labour negotiations.
“I don’t think they’ll have any impact on the ‘negotiations’ we’re having with CUPE,” Higgs responded with air quotes. “You can expect to see them back to work next week, one way or another.”
Higgs has also planned to allow Cardy to host every press conference going forward to shield himself from his own plummeting approval rating.