De-sensitivity training may be just the ticket ....

As has been reported by the CBC and picked up here, here, and here, Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has apparently apologized for something he isn’t sure he did, to someone who wasn’t there to witness his supposedly egregious behaviour. Now we get Newfoundland and Labrador NDP Leader Lorraine Michael wading in demanding that Minister Hearn attend sensitivity training as a result of his “shocking” behaviour.

Now no one, to my knowledge, has publicly re-told the joke that set these folks off, but I would submit it can’t be that bad as it was told in a public speech to a mixed audience. But regardless, perhaps what’s really needed here is not so much sensitivity training for Minister Hearn, but possibly some de-sensitivity training for the very thin-skinned who travel among us.

Irene Mathyssen redux

According to this story: "Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has apologized for a joke he's not sure he made, responding to a complaint from a politician who didn't hear it."

I don’t particularly care for Loyola Hearn, but this seems a bit of a stretch even in the highly-charged atmosphere of Newfoundland politics.