THE BIG PAYOFF

Fodey rewarded for being NDP fall guy

May 10, 2008

Your SaskParty MLAs are calling on the NDP to foot the entire bill for their former caucus chief of staff's rich severance package.

For being the fall guy in the NDP Fraud Scandal, Jim Fodey will receive $113,511 in public money.

The NDP have always maintained Fodey RESIGNED.   Under legislative rules, only people TERMINATED WITHOUT CAUSE are eligible for a severance package.

"There should be no severance package if he resigned. [...] Now it simply looks like it's a payoff for him being the fall guy," said Government Services Minister and Cannington MLA Dan D'Autremont.

So how do the NDP explain the severance package?  Here's what NDP caucus chair Frank Quennell had to say:

"He did resign, but in my view it would be held to be an involuntary resignation,"
Quennel said.

Say what, Frank?

"The resignation, I guess, was requested, or asked for, and acquired."

D'Autremont said that sounds just like another way of saying Fodey was fired.  He said either the NDP was lying the first time around or Fodey does not deserve the settlement.

However you cut it, the NDP should apologize and foot the entire bill out of their caucus budget.

Fodey stepped down last year for providing "incomplete" information to the public and ousted Moose Jaw North MLA Glen Hagel on how the NDP Fraud Scandal was handled.  Fodey and Hagel received a letter in 1992 from a former NDP caucus staffer in which she confessed to altering cheques by about $6,000.

After a concerned citizen gave that letter to your SaskParty MLAs, and we went public with it, Fodey told reporters he went to the police with the information in 1992.   Regina Police held an emergency news conference on a Friday night to say that they in fact had not received the letter until 1994.

In the end, the explosive story cost both Fodey and Glen Hagel their jobs, cast a shadow of doubt over the Calvert administration, and ultimately contributed to their blow-out loss in the November 2007 election.