PEI’s Kathleen Casey leader of a democratic institution, demogogue or bully?

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Why did the Speaker of PEI Legislature ban disabled journalist ?

PEI Speaker Kathleen Casey (Liberal) and Senator Mike Duffy (Tory) (photo- Guardian)


I was going to write this story as a satire but the last time I satirized the Ghiz government, the Honorable Speaker Kathleen Casey took extreme umbrage at my humour.

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” “The Mourning Bride” (1697) by William Congreve.
Since the PEI Legislature officially created a Press Gallery 40 years ago, no journalist has had their press credentials removed by the Speaker.
That is until October 2009 when Liberal Speaker of the Legislature Kathleen Casey sent me a letter removing my press pass.
Why would a Liberal Speaker in a liberal western democracy remove the press credentials of a journalist?
Surely it was some great and important reason for Speaker Casey to convene the first meeting of the august body known as the Press Gallery of Legislative Assembly on Prince Edward Island. 
Let me state unequivocally that I have showed the deepest respect for the Legislature and made no fuss nor caused any disturbance that would cause my ejection. Ruffle some feathers? Of course, that’s my job as a journalist to report the facts and expose the truth.
What reasons could Casey have for ignoring the right to a free and independant press, to free speech?
The reason cited – NJN Network had printed a satire on the public access of disabled people to the Confederation Library.  The satire is reprinted below.

Satire
 is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphicand performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon. (Wikipedia)

I can understand why people don’t like satire. Humor is quite effective in making a point about something shameful. That the Government of PEI would tell a disabled person to “suck it up” on access to the Public Library is shameful. It’s dispicable. It calls for reproach and hopefully an improvement in the social mores of the government and PEI.
In this case, all it did was infuriate the government, apparently. It made them madder than the hundreds of other articles we published on their faults, failings and foibles. It ridiculed them.
Of course, CBC ridicules the government all the time on CBC The National22 Minutes and Rick Mercer. The Guardian publishes satirical cartoons regularly.
So there must be more than satire.
It could be they consider one journalist working for an internet news blog an easy target.
It could also be they think that disabled people are easy targets for abuse of power.
Let’s face it, bullies like a weak victim. Women, children, older people and the disabled are more likely to be victims of crimes.
Does Casey’s behavior sound like Communist China? No because in China, people are encouraged to go to the library and people with disabilities are given special accomodations.
Perhaps it sounds more like Libya. In that and similar dicatorships if you hold the government up to ridicule, they take umbrage at your words. You might find yourself in deep trouble for using satire and humor to attack public figures.
I am very puzzled how a Liberal government thinks it is liberal when it acts this way.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network

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