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 (1)
2. Jack Harris (2)
3. Michael Chong (-)
He laments for the backbencher. He acknowledges government fallibility. He asks profound questions. He thinks Omar Khadr should be repatriated. And now he wants to reform Question Period.
4. Pat Martin (6)
He was caught stealing tea. Fair enough. But then he explains himself with historical reference. It’s that extra effort that separates him from the competition.
5. Francine Lalonde (4)
6. Helena Guergis (5)
7. Derek Lee (3)
What are we to do if Parliament’s leading authority on the rule book has, in some way, breached the rules? Would there be any shame in calling it a day for Canadian democracy at that point?
8. Shelly Glover (7)
Still the leading government backbencher, but she mustn’t get complacent. In a ten-minute span on May 5, Stephen Woodworth managed to post six messages to his Twitter account criticizing the Liberal leader. A day later, Mr. Woodworth got up in QP and lobbed a perfectly partisan query at the President of the Treasury Board. Ms. Glover edges him here only because of her previous theorizing that the Liberal approach to crime had something to do with some history of winning the prisoner vote.
9. Daniel Paille (8)
If the next election doesn’t somehow result in a full debate between Mr. Paille and Jim Flaherty, we’ll all be the poorer for it.
10. Dominic LeBlanc (9)
When do we start making seat projections for a 2016 vote featuring party leaders Dominic LeBlanc, Diane Finley, Thomas Mulcair and Daniel Paille?

Previous rankings: March 12March 19April 3April 10April 25. May 1.

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