backbencher

I almost never disagree with Chris Selley. Indeed, I am almost willing to make it a rule not to disagree with Chris Selley. But his analysis yesterday of Brad Trost’s groping for more backbencher power in Parliament is uncharacteristically superficial. Selley celebrates Trost’s public ruminating over his inability to spurn the party whip on polarizing issues; wouldn’t it be nice, he asks, if we had a Conservative Party more like the eclectic, dissent-tolerating one in old Westminster? Perhaps it would be. But there is an awkward plain fact staring us in the face.

Around 3pm yesterday, Paul Calandra, the duly elected Member of Parliament for Oak Ridges-Markham, receiver of the votes of some 32,208 citizens in the last election, stood in the House of Commons during the 45 minutes allotted each day so that MPs may present oral questions for the government. He asked the following.