Another Tina Mundy Story

Island legislators have been in a tizzy this week about documents tabled by Hon. Tina Mundy, Minister of Family and Human Services, that accidentally had political annotations on them.

In doing so, Ms. Mundy lifted a curtain on a practice that everyone knows goes on–political primping during polling season–and that has been practiced by all political parties for generations.

One wishes, as the opposition has highlighted, that governments were less concerned with “good news,” and more concerned with “good governance.”

But the issue is hardly deserving of the fusillade that has been lobbied. And, ironically, the fuss that’s being made has taken the opposition’s attention away from holding government to account on things that is should actually be held to account for.

In light of all this, let me relate another Tina Mundy story.

Last month Oliver and I went to an evening session of the Legislative Assembly. As the evening went on, there was a break in the proceedings while members waited for some photocopying to happen, and during this break Ms. Mundy came outside the rail to speak to us. She sat down in front of us on one of the pews in the public gallery, and we had a pleasant conversation about, among other things, Oliver’s service dog [[Ethan]]. She was curious and engaged, and talked to Oliver as a human being; these are qualities you want in your Minister of Family and Human Services, and this made me happy.

Later that night, after we got home, Oliver and I were chatting about the Walk for Dog Guides that’s coming up at the end of May, and how we could encourage people we know to support it. Unbeknownst to me, Oliver then took the opportunity to send a message to Ms. Mundy encouraging her to participate in the walk; the next day he received a message from her back telling him that she’d looked up the walk in her district in Summerside, and that she’d make an effort to attend if she could.

Politicians do boneheaded things. People do boneheaded things. While we shouldn’t ignore them, and while we should treat them seriously if they have serious import, we should also remember that we all do thousands of non-boneheaded things every day. And some days those things, while they might seem small and inconsequential in the grander scheme of things, can show a young man that engaging with politicians is a normal, everyday thing.