Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

The Backbench Top Ten

by Aaron Wherry on Sunday, November 21, 2010 3:08pm - 10 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses.

1. Bob Rae (10)
This week in review, Part 1. Let’s allow that Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff promoted an extension to the mission in Afghanistan—a position made clear months ago—for no other reason than a conviction that it was the right thing to do. Does that assuage any of their critics? Are we not always moaning that our leaders don’t stand up, no matter how popular or unpopular, for what they believe? Were all those Liberals who now are complaining about the extension just assuming that the Prime Minister would never change his mind and thus the Ignatieff-Rae proposal was moot? Or is the complaint merely one of process: that this should have been debated in the House and voted upon? If so, would they all now be fine if the proposal had passed?
2. Glen Pearson (-)
This week in review, Part 2. Looking back, was this perhaps the dumbest week in the history of our democracy? And does this dispatch from Mr. Pearson make you feel any better or simply worse?
3. Michael Chong (4)
It’s surely now time to add the abolishment of members’ statements—the 15 minutes before QP reserved for MPs to stand up and celebrate local bake sales or impugn one another’s reputations—to Mr. Chong’s proposed reforms, no?
4. Larry Miller (2)
5. Maxime Bernier (3)
6. Keith Martin (5)
7. Jack Harris (6)
8. Serge Menard (7)
9. James Rajotte (8)
10. Ken Dryden (9)

Previous rankings: March 12. March 19. April 3. April 10. April 25. May 1. May 9. May 16. May 23. May 30. June 6. June 13. June 20. September 26. October 3. October 10. October 17. October 24. October 31. November 7. November 14.

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  • NorthernPoV

    Re: #1
    Be careful what you wish for….

  • Dot

    AW, you do realize that as you beef up the commentary on the top three, we will eventually ask you to drop the remaining seven, and instead rank and comment on the three backbenchers who are "not hot".

  • MostlyCivil

    Whoa. Read The Honourable Mr. Pearson's blog. That fellow has a nice turn of phrase.I caught myselt thinking "he's too smart to be an MP" than stopped, looked at what i had just read and realized that's exactly what he was talking about.

    Sometimes, we're all to quick to reach for the flippant.

  • Cats

    It was indulgent.

    And it would have been nice if he mentioned everyone who works in the oil sands, away from their families for weeks at a time.

    Plus his comments on Joy Smith in an earlier post were completely unacceptable.

    To be honest when I read most of Pearson's work I get the following impression:

    I'm earnest and i'm a good guy!! So i'm going to use that as a foundation to relentlessly attack the partisanship, lack of seriousness, and poor behavior I find in others!

    Even though sometimes my attacks kind of make me sound like all those bad things !! But its ok 'cause I really, really, really am earnest and a good guy!!!!

    Don't judge others. You become your enemies. Good advice Cats.

  • John W.

    Hate to sound like a Reformer, but the real power over important things is already in the provinces. Perhaps it would be a good idea of dismantle a lot of the distant Ottawa power centre and get some more power down to the provincial level where politicians can live closer to the capital and have a more sane lifestyle, and see more of their family and constituents.
    Get Ottawa down to foreign affairs and trade.
    Some of the emptiness in Ottawa, disfunctional House, QP, horse race media coverage etc may be the result of the important issues, health education etc, being discussed at provincial capitals. The media focusses too much on Ottawa and not enough on local capitals. The actual importance is the reverse of the coverage.

  • Jenn_

    I attended a Liberal meeting on Saturday. I meant to ask Glen Pearson at the meeting how many emails he'd received about Rights and Democracy, but I never had the chance. Thank goodness for that, since when I came home I read his blog. I felt terrible–just awful–that he spent all afternoon with us instead of with his family on one of the two days he had 'off'. And some of us (including me) were complaining, a bit, that he wasn't there in the morning! I sincerely hope he doesn't know how many emails he received on Rights and Democracy until tomorrow.

  • glenpearson

    Sorry you feel that way Jenn. I was in Sarnia on Saturday morning, speaking at a fundraiser for the Liberal candidate there. Glen

  • madeyoulook

    Mr. Pearson's dispatch leaves me deeply appreciative of our MPs, and more than a little worried that the long-time "lifers" who actually do enjoy a couple decades of absentee parenting are very much the wrong people for the job.

    Also, if the federal government would mind its own damned constitutional business, there would be blessedly less nonsense to occupy the MPs time in Ottawa. Just sayin'.

  • Jenn_

    Thanks for the reply, Glen. And I don't feel that way, now that I read the blog and discovered you were off to an even earlier meeting than I was!

  • A Casual Reader

    I know Windsor is near the USA, I didn't know it was actually part of it.

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