Ottawa

The Backbench Top Ten

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. Maxime Bernier (9)
How many are impressed with Mr. Bernier not because of what he’s said so far, but simply because he’s been willing to say it out loud? How often are we simply impressed anytime an MP is willing to seemingly speak freely?

2. Francine Lalonde (1)
3. Helena Guergis (10)
If the Conservative go ahead and get another candidate for Simcoe-Grey, what are the chances she runs as an independent and what are the odds she wins? And what happens if neither the ethics commissioner nor the RCMP pursue charges of wrongdoing? How certain are we that she’s not going to end up seeming hard done by here?
4. Shelly Glover (2)
Ms. Glover, asked after QP on Friday if William Shatner would make a good governor general. “I have to admit I’m a Treky. However, I didn’t think that this was what Canadians were seized with frankly. I’d rather talk about the gun registry and how the Liberals tried to force their witnesses in committee onto Canadians and completely disregarded every Canadian who wanted to come to committee and support the repeal of the long gun registry. I  think Canadians are seized with that.”
5. Jack Harris (4)
6. Pat Martin (5)
Mr. Martin explains why, in his opinion, it doesn’t matter if Rahim Jaffer was successful in lobbying the government. “Mr. Speaker, the government’s claim of no harm, no foul because Mr. Jaffer’s illegal lobbying was not successful is laughable. It is like saying if one robs a bank and there is no money in the vault, then no crime took place.”
7. Daniel Paille (3)
8.
Bob Rae (6)
9. Joe Comartin (7)
10. Wayne Easter (-)
Somebody had to ask this question.

Previous rankings: March 12March 19April 3. April 10.

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