Well, a couple of surprises...for the moment. I did not expect either Alison Coffin or Ches Crosbie to be in a losing position. The latter may not even get a recount, but I fully expect Alison to do so. A 53 vote margin is not an easy one to overcome, but with the reports we have been getting of "spoiled" ballots that were not spoiled, who knows. I do know that, when the leader of NDP was expected to be everywhere, then the District Association team takes on a more important role, and for whatever reason, that team did not show up in the numbers we have had before. There may have been some personal reasons for that, but they should have been put aside when all hands were needed on deck. Now, in spite of some encouraging signs, the party has been thrown into turmoil, just as we should have getting ready for a provincial convention. We clearly need to spend more effort on organizing district associations. My effort in Harbour Main became a token attempt to give the party some...

 Today, with the help of my friend Jim, we picked up the signs that remained from my campaign. I put out 28, and today picked up 9. There are a couple that we didn't get to (short of time - I had an appointment early afternoon in the city), but the rest had disappeared. In all, I was surprised to find the ones I did, given the amount of snow we had had since the start of the campaign, and the fact that in some cases I had placed them too close to rows of mail boxes, where snow clearing to give access would have buried them. Still, it did mean that, from Hodgewater Line to Upper Gullies, my name was still present to the end. As we drove around, I reflected on what I thought I had accomplished, and on what I would have dearly loved to do had the weather been more civil. I particularly enjoyed the interaction with people on their doorstep, especially the ones who were eager to engage me in a discussion of politics, as they tried to figure out what a 78-year-old retired professor of Fr...

 Since my last posting on this blog, an awful lot has happened... including the postponing of "election day" to 5 March, and a series of short-lived decisions by the Chief Returning Officer to first cancel in-person voting for the Avalon peninsula districts, then a change of deadline for requests for special ballots from Friday 12 February to Monday 15 February, and then the cancellation of all in-person voting in the province (the latter caused by a widespread withdrawal of services by poll workers), then a change of deadline date for requesting special ballots to Friday 19 February and for receipt of said ballots to 5 March at 8pm. The reaction from the public has not been good, especially since the single phone-line into the CRO's office and its single voice mailbox could not cope with the number of calls, and its website crashed for similar reasons. The response from the CRO was slow, but eventually a call-centre was set up, more staff hired to deal with the backlog, ...

Yesterday, Saturday 23 January, was a day of firsts for me.  I have lived in Newfoundland and Labrador since 1967, and yet yesterday at the Country Kitchen Cafe in Brigus, I had my first taste of bologna! And this was not your ordinary, everyday bologna, but smoked bologna prepared by the chef and owner Dave Collins. He buys a regular Maple Leaf bologna (round, not square), coats it with a rub of his own design, then heats it on a BBQ just long enough for the rub to take effect. The result, combined with the Quay breakfast - two eggs, home fries, toast and coffee - was magnificent! My second first was gaining a confirmed vote for my election. I won't identify who it was, but the adrenaline rush it gave me set me up for the rest of the day. And my third? Planting my first election sign in the front garden of the secondary home of our leader Alison Coffin, in Brigus! All of this followed my collecting the preliminary list of voters for the Harbour Main District from the Returning Off...

  Not the kind of break I wanted... I had wanted to go to Avondale to pick up the voters list for Harbour Main, but I could not get an answer at the Returning Officer's office in the Avondale Railway Station Museum, and an email to the Chief Returning Officer in St John's has gone unanswered. I can understand that the Avondale Field Office (terminology?) might not have been open because of the snow accumulation, but the office in St John's should have been able to give me the information I was looking for. Fortunately, my Nomination papers are all submitted and in "good order". So my friend Jim and I will drive out to Avondale tomorrow morning... One piece of good news! Another friend has offered to drive me out to Chapel Cove next week-end. I'll get only a couple of hours there, but that is better than nothing. I also plan on getting to Mackinsons, where I am told there is a cluster of NDP supporters. In the meantime, I will have to rely on phone calls to get...

  Today, thanks to the remarkable service from FastSigns in St John's, I was able to pick up my order of 30 signs today, just as the snow was starting to fall. Given the current storm, and my having to rely on friends for transportation, it will be next week before I can finally install them in the Harbour Main District. I hope to place them in prominent places, but if you feel I have missed a good spot, please let me know. My budget is not large, but I may be able to stretch it to fit in a few more signs. Stay safe! Be kind to each other! Tony Chadwick NDP Candidate for Harbour Main.