The Joel Bernard question

NBT says in a round-up post this morning:

Losers: Atlantic Tory strategists for parachuting a candidate into Bill Casey's riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley. I said this riding could have an ill effect on other campaigns throughout the province (as well as neighbouring provinces), and it hasn't disappointed. The perception of the party has plummeted considerably in just two days because of this bonehead decision made in Ottawa. If I were a Tory in a winnable riding, I'd be furious.

This really is unseemly.

I know when I lived in Ontario, and even today when, in my job, I work with people from Ontario, that an unfortunately high number of them really do have an illogical misunderstanding of how things work out here in the Atlantic.

You would never hear someone from Ontario ask a Manitoban, "oh, well you must have all of the government/business contacts in Saskatchewan?" or something along those lines. They are distinct provinces and they would share no more in common than Ontario and Quebec or Ontario and Manitoba - other neighbouring provinces. But all the time you'll hear, "oh, well New Brunswicker, you must know all about Newfoundland, it's the same thing anyway right?"

This is the sort of mentality that is involved in the Joel Bernard pick. This will be big news Nova Scotia. And NBT is right, a bad riding could become a series of bad ridings because of this move. I imagine quite a few people in Pictou County read the Truro Daily News which, I imagine, will be all over this.

This could hurt Peter Mackay quite a bit.

My question is, ok, it is one thing for Conservative HQ to be dominated by those who may not understand Atlantic Canada and the fact that there are four provinces here. But why didn't Peter MacKay know better? Ok, maybe he wasn't kept in the loop. But, why didn't Joel Bernard know better??