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. Jack Harris (1)
It might be too much to assume the detainee document negotiations will get sorted now that Jack Harris is back from Afghanistan, but the presence of someone who seems a threat to overturn a boardroom table or two certainly can’t hurt.
2. Michael Chong (2)
3. Siobhan Coady (-)
This perhaps speaks for itself. What’s most impressive about Ms. Coady is how seriously she takes the business of Parliament and her job as a Parliamentarian. She is tough without being hysterical, forceful without being blustery. And she is, perhaps because of this seriousness, the first opposition MP to truly put John Baird in his place when provoked.
4. Maxime Bernier (3)
5. Bob Rae (4)
For four years running, the MP deemed the House’s best orator has been the most prominent Liberal next to the party’s leader: Ralph Goodale, Michael Ignatieff and, for the last two years, Bob Rae. Make of this what you will.
6. Michelle Simson (5)
7. Pat Martin (7)
8. Francine Lalonde (8)
9. Daniel Paille (10)
10. Dominic LeBlanc (-)
Previous rankings: March 12. March 19. April 3. April 10. April 25. May 1. May 9. May 16. May 23. May 30.