Jumping the Shark

Those of us at a certain age can recall a terrific TV show from the 1970's called "Happy Days". It had a delightful cast of characters and produced many memorable catch-phrases and story lines.

Happy Days was also responsible for spawning the phrase "jumping the shark". Unfortunately, "jumping the shark" refers to the point at which a show runs out of good ideas and just throws out any kind of controversial or exciting sounding story line to keep viewers interested. In this case, it was an episode (three-parter!) where Fonzie makes a crazy bet that he can jump over a shark on water-skis.

Here in New Brunswick - SHAWN GRAHAM HAS JUMPED THE SHARK.

Oh sure, we have all enjoyed many episodes of "Meet the Liberals" over the past three years. There was the one where Shawn said he was going to balance the books (oopsie!). There was the one where Shawn said he would lower taxes - then raise them - then lower them (oh those crazy Liberals). There was the one where Shawn was going to make Saint John an energy hub (whatever that means). And of course many, many more.

But with the deal to sell NB Power to Quebec - Premier Graham has jumped the shark and completely lost all credibility. Apparently he has no sense of irony at all because he has launched a website called "lowerratesnb" for a deal that does not lower rates for homeowners one single penny. The website contains buttons that are called "Win Win" and "Economic Growth" when clearly hundreds of good paying engineering jobs are going to be lost as we shut down one power plant after another. There's even a button called "Reliability" --- does anyone remember how many weeks it took Hydro Quebec to restore service after the ice storm?

When politicians jump the shark, and there are lots of examples in Canadian history, their time is up. Unfortunately they always seem to be the last to know.