With it being Easter weekend, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter especially all of those hard-working MPs and ministers and of course the Prime Minister too. Then again “hard-working” might not be an accurate description of our elected representatives.
We are two thirds of the way through this session before out tireless MPs break for the summer and another 99 days off and away from the Hill. With the PM off on another vacation break, he leads by example.
As we all know, the country is humming along just fine, there is no crisis in the oil patch, ISIS is of no concern and our dollar is doing just dandy thank you very much. With the middle class having been saved by the Liberal government and their latest budget, we really don’t need our opposition MPs on the job holding the government to account. Nor do we need the government side introducing new policies through legislation that should be debated. Come to think of it with one opposition leader distracted and trying to hang on to his job and the Conservatives still trying to fight the battles of the last campaign, the opposition might as well be on holiday.
A quick look at the numbers shows that from November 4th to the June break we have 232 days of which 144 have passed. In other words we have coved two thirds of this session. Our hardworking MPs have managed to squeeze in 51 working days at this point out of that total of 232 days. To be fair, not every day in a month is a work day so let’s look at it a bit closer. In November they worked 14 out of 20 days, December 9 of 17, January 5 of 20, February 14 of 21 and March 9 of 21. Of course that is counting Fridays when we all know most MPs have blown out of town on Thursday evening.
Our hard working representatives will return in April to work another 10 days, plus 17 more in May and 7 in June, unless they use up some of the extra 10 days held in reserve. Judging by the above pattern, that is not likely.
Remember the old recruiting slogan “There is no life like it”, in this parliament that is certainly true.
Just a little bitter, eh Keith?
Does Keith actually believe that MPs only work when they are sitting in the HOC?
Strange indeed.