It may interest you to know that the former Liberal leader, Stephane Dion, is still a Member of Parliament in Ottawa earning $157,731 in basic sessional indemnity, to represent the people of Saint-Laurent—Cartierville.
No, I’m not joking or making fun of him. I merely point out the fact because the former leader has been beyond invisible in the House of Commons this year. Mr.Dion’s statistics in the House put him at the bottom of the list of 308 MP’s, tied in a 9-way last place for words spoken in the 40th Parliament, third session.
Along with Lynne Yelich, Maurizio Bevilacqua, Rob Anders, Peter Goldring, Jean-Yves Roy, Greg Thompson, Roger Gaudet, and Rob Moore, Mr.Dion has said nary a word in this session. Among those 9 MPs, he also holds the second worst attendance record, deciding to skip work 12 times out of the 26 times Parliamment has been in session since March 3. Not a bad way to earn a six-figure salary for the people of Saint-Laurent—Cartierville.
Of course, this was probably all agreed upon within the inner circles of the Liberal caucus when Mr.Dion stepped down to make way for the anointed one. But that still doesn’t say much for the democratic institution.
Liberal MPs have been notably absent since Parliament reconvened after a lengthy prorogation. Leader Michael Ignatieff has missed 18 days; John Cannis 14; Todd Russell 14; Mario Silva 15; Ruby Dhalla 16; Marlene Jennings 19; Jim Karygiannis 15. For all the melodrama surrounding prorogation and a crumbling democracy, the Liberals don’t seem particularly inclined to show up.
This is quite a contrast with Stockwell Day. Stockwell’s my MP, he’s a nice guy and apparently he worked for a logging contractor who worked for our company years and years ago. He’s also very good with names of hill staffers apparently.
All that aside though, I didn’t think he was an appropriate choice to lead the Canadian Alliance when he won the leadership. As it turns out, I was right, but after Day stepped down he did a remarkable thing and kept working.
I’ve heard from Liberals working on the hill that he’s a good minister although they obviously don’t agree with everything he does.
The point is that having been demoted, he didn’t just disappear, but rather stayed on in a lesser role after an embarrassing demotion. This is something most people can’t do, whether they’re in government or private business.
Without making any comment about David McGuinty’s job as environment critic, it is a role that might have been well suited to Mr. Dion. Of course it’s quite possible that he’d have been happy with the job, but wasn’t given the chance.
Adrian,
The only exception I would make to your list would be for Mr. Iggy. As the leader of the party I can easily understand why he may be out of the House alot. The same way many of the other leaders are not present all of the time. But the rest of them do not seem to have a good reason.
Rocky
Rocky,
Agreed, but even the PM has only 10 absences.
You should have included the total number of days the House was sitting to make these numbers more relevant. And I don’t agree that Ignatieff has a free pass to miss days. He’s the leader of the opposition. If he is not in the House, he is campaigning and missing a shot at the evening news.
One of the more pathetic parliamentary rules is that you cannot cite someone for not being present. As a taxpayer and someone who votes every election, I want to see my MP there every day. That was the whole problem with prorogation. Canadians knew that the members of the government were working, but the optics of Parliament not sitting was much stronger. It’s kind of like all those people who get to work from home because they have computer hook-ups. People that are not permitted to work from home are totally convinced that these guys are just goofing off, but in fact if they were, the company probably would make them come in the office.
Good call Jad. I’ve amended the text to note that there has been 26 sittings since the third session of the 40th Parliament convened.
To be fair priorities are not easy. Ignatieff has been busy trying to save the furniture from the next election. All those fundraisers to help has reduced those est.50 layoffs to under 20 in Nov 2009.
A few more cross country fundraisers should help keep the lights on until the election results.
Very simple why, they arn’t running the show. So they see little reason to participate thinking like the spoiled children they all are.
Subbing for Gayle here: how many sessions did Conservatives,Bloccers,and NDP’ers miss?
Issachar,you’re in the Okanagan?! Thought you were a Vancouverite.
Rob Cannan’s my MP. Good guy. Met him on several occasions,down to earth guy who will hopefully be promoted to Cabinet one of these days.
Don, good question. Here are the stats:
CPC sessions missed: 140 among 144 MPs [0.97]
Lib sessions missed: 557 among 77 MPs [7.2]
Bloc sessions missed: 78 among 48 MPs [1.6]
NDP sessions missed: 64 among 37 MPs [1.7]
Well, I used to live the the lower mainland. I moved down there for University and I moved back here a few years ago when I got out of teaching and back into full time IT and started working for my family’s company.
Perhaps he is a “consitutency MP?”
Thanks Adrian,that’s pretty clear. The liberals are by far the worst offenders,the Bloc and NDP are pretty good too.
AND THE LIBERALS CREATED SO MUCH FUSS AND ADO ABOUT THE PROROGUING!
Bloody hypocrites.
Even I was shocked to find such a high absentee rate among all Liberals.