Categories: Canada

Parliamentarians of the year

Maclean’s Exclusive: From the hardest working to most knowledgeable, best orator to rising star, here are Canada’s top MPs—as selected by their peers

by macleans.ca on Thursday, June 3, 2010 12:00am - 106 Comments

Between the bluster and the blarney, there is a lot of good work done on Parliament Hill. And so for the fourth year in a row, we asked MPs to nominate the best among their peers. Nearly 70 per cent answered our call. Here are the results.

PHOTO GALLERY

THE WINNERS

Parlimentarian of the Year: John Baird (Conservative)
Most Knowledgeable: Gilles Duceppe (BQ)
Most Collegial: Peter Stoffer (NDP)
Rising Star: Kelly Block (Conservative)
Best Orator: Bob Rae (Liberal)
Best Represents Constituents: Robert Bouchard (BQ)
Hardest Working: Ted Menzies (Conservative)

How we did it: Ipsos Reid asked all members of Parliament to nominate the best MPs in each of seven categories. This year, 202 MPs responded, casting votes for members both in and outside their parties. The votes were converted to a point system to ensure that larger parties did not have an advantage. The MP who received the most points in each category won. The MP who earned the highest number of total points was named Parliamentarian of the Year.

Tags: Parliamentarians of the year

http://intensedebate.com/people/Memi_S Memi_S

You must be kidding! JOHN BULLYBOY BARKER-BAIRD?!!! The House's Pitbull?

Surely, Macleans needs to attend a Metaphysics 101 course to determine where Reality lies and where Illusion ends! How could Macleans give the Prize to this disgusting Schoolyard Bully?!

To think that this overgrown baby-bully with ADD and Anger issues, inter alia, has managed to get respect from Maclean's editors (remember how Duffy of CTV spinned his way to Senator and CTV had to post a disclaimer about their political bias!) is unfathomable to anyone who's watched Question Period longer than 5 minutes!

To think that this moron is on Taxpayer Welfare getting over $275,000 per year to froth at the mouth and attack female members of a committee (he carries his personal misogyny on his sleeve!) with his blather and shouts….

Baird needs PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT. And put a leash on him and a mouthguard….
http://intensedebate.com/people/Memi_S Memi_S

Ontario Town…..

I agree….We should STOP BUYING MACLEANS…It's a Humour magazine. For surely, only a humourist would have given this HOUSE PITBULL AND SCHOOL YARD BULLY the Prize! Macleans gets it for sheer stupidity and lack of journalistic integrity.
Roberta

What an ignorant bunch most of you are. You all sound brainless or Liberal. That's one and the same. You neglected to say how partisan this committee is and they are not digging for the truth but to find something on the Conservatives. They are desperate. This committee should have been wrapped up long ago.
I haven't heard a word about the ignorance of Pat Martin or Shiban Coty or the deceptiveness of Bob Rae stabbing his own leader in the back. John Baird says it like it is. These committees are a national embarassment and good that someone is telling them so.
Denis

"Ipsos Reid asked all members of Parliament to nominate the best MPs…[t]he votes were converted to a point system to ensure that larger parties did not have an advantage."
It's to bad that parliamentarians view John Baird as their role model!
http://intensedebate.com/people/Skinny_Dipper Skinny Dipper

Are these the political Razzies?
Ron & Cecile Renaud

Congratulations to all the winners – but it seems that the responders overlooked a hard working, knowledgeable, collegial, rising star – the well spoken Jeff Watson who is our very own Parliamentarian of the Year best representing the constituents of Essex.
Grahame Murray

Maclean's may not resurrect Stanley Knowles but he stirred in his final resting place.
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/thereginamom thereginamom

How thoroughly and absolutely disgusting that John Baird received this award. It sullies the idea of Parliamentarianism the world over!
Roberta

Bob Fife said today that they should have shown the ranting and screaming of one of the NDP members and a liberal from that committee for they were every bit as bad as John Baird but they only put out the picture of John. John Baird is a great MP in his riding and in the House during question period I find he always answers the questions that are screamed at him from the opposition across the floor. I was reading some of the comments in the Globe and Mail blog related to this appointment and several comments were thoroughly disgusting and many referred to sexual orientation. Neandrathal is a term that could be used by most of you bloggers. You are the bullies.

Sara

I live in the pitbull's riding. (Apologies to pitbulls everywhere.) "John Baird is a great MP in his riding". Really? How so? Invisible maybe, but great? Well, considering who he is, I'll take invisible.

As for Bob Fife's comments. I bet what he said was true. I heard him too. BUT, unless those other MPs have a reputation for consistently behaving like spoiled, entitled brats, it's a moot point. Baird has risen the bar so high on immature behavior that there should be no surprise that he got the air-time. He has put himself out there as the bully he is. And as for "answering questions", this guy invented rhetoric and "buzz lines" to say on every occasion so as to avoid an actual answer. I will give him credit, he is excellent at it. But Roberta, WE are the bullies? I don't think so. We're just telling it the way Baird lays it out for himself. The only defense I will stand up for in his case is that his sexual orientation is none of our business and attacking it is a low blow. But otherwise……..bye-bye John.

James Langdon

I'd like to see the formulae used to derive this and the questions posed to Parliamentarians. Where can I get this information?
not there

Baird is just a back-alley thug in a suit and tie. Let him loose in a swarm of real back-alley thugs and they'd grind him into dust.
http://www.utex.biz.pl Wyroby gumowe

Festival stars and so no translation into reality.
Maico Meier

I thought this was a satirical article at first. John Baird could only be named Parliamentarian of the Year with the aid of mushrooms. To think that this puffed up, preening frat boy whose mother no doubt told him on a daily basis that "he was special" is the poster boy of parliament. It beggars imagination. What a crude, nasty little country we've become.