The Backbench Top Ten

After a week away, our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs returns. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses.

1. Bob Rae (1)
The House is not without impressive speeches, they just tend to occur when no one’s paying attention. This performance on Friday afternoon, for instance, would’ve disappeared into Hansard if someone in Mr. Rae’s office hadn’t thought to put it on YouTube.
2. Jack Harris (2)
3. Gerry Byrne (3)
This (and here the next day) would seem a good example of how to hold a government to account.
4. John McKay (-)
This too.
5. Megan Leslie (-)
The top up-and-comer accepts her award with typical verve. “Whether it’s The Hill Times or other polls, we have always seen women in up-and-coming categories because women who are up-and-comers are not threatening, right? If you look at who are the ‘powerful people,’ who are the ‘skilled ministers,’ it isn’t women. And that’s because we’re talking about positions where there actually is power. To be an up-and-comer, you know, it’s nice, it’s cute, you get a pat on the head, and ‘Isn’t that great to see Megan rising up the ranks,’ but it’s still not threatening. So I think we still need to have a gendered lens when we’re looking at these kinds of polls … It doesn’t mean we’ve broken through.”
6. Michael Chong (5)
7. Maxime Bernier (8)
Mr. Bernier’s latest: a quibble with the U.S. Federal Reserve.
8. Keith Martin (6)
9. Serge Menard (8)
10. Joe Comartin (-)
On the subject of worthy contributions to our Parliamentary democracy, a review of Mr. Comartin’s statements is regularly instructive.

Previous rankings: March 12. March 19. April 3. April 10. April 25. May 1. May 9. May 16. May 23. May 30. June 6. June 13. June 20. September 26. October 3. October 10. October 17. October 24. October 31. November 7. November 14. November 21. November 29.