Patrick Faber is Back in the House of Representatives
Patrick Faber
Former Leader of the Opposition Patrick Faber returned to the House of Representatives today after being absent for several months amid a personal scandal that also sidelined him as leader of the United Democratic Party. Faber now sits two spaces down from the seat he once occupied in the National Assembly. But he was in good spirits, notwithstanding the challenges that himself and his party have been faced with recently. We had a chance to catch up with the Collet Area Representative this evening and we asked about his extended absence from parliament.
Patrick Faber, Area Representative, Collet
“I had made attempts to come before. I, at one point, had COVID. I was in the country but I was not able to, and I had a very mild bout of COVID, just a fever for a day and a half, but I was not able to get a negative test in time for the house meeting. And then, on another occasion I was at my son’s graduation in the U.S. and I tried to get back but there was a slew of cancellations of flights. So I’m very pleased to be back and of course, I hold my duty to the people of Collet as my primary responsibility now. Of course, they have always been my responsibility as well and so that’s what my focus will be here. But I never really left the party, I kept abreast of things. We have various different chat groups that keep us abreast of what is happening, both in the party and inside of the government and so I kept abreast of what was going on. There have been difficult times. I will make that no secret and I believe that people would see me as disingenuous if I said that everything has been rosy since certainly I left office as leader of the party. There have been quite a bit of back-and-forth, to be honest with you, but a few weeks ago, the leader reached out to me and apologized for things that may have been done or said and I saw that as an overture for us to have a discussion and so initially, I had indicated to him that I would be returning to the country around the middle. I had not intended to come as early as Wednesday of this week because I didn’t know there was a house meeting. I had to move up the time.”
