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. Michael Chong (1)
2. Jack Harris (2)
3. Maxime Bernier (3)
Is this the start of our own Tea Party movement? Does that make Mr. Bernier our Sarah Palin or our Ron Paul? And if we’re going to start talking about the founders, shouldn’t we start with Lafontaine and Baldwin?
4. Scott Brison (4)
5. Candice Hoeppner (5)
6. Carolyn Bennett (-)
As far as a national pastime, being frustrated about our democracy has perhaps not quite surpassed hockey, but it’s at least now slightly more popular than lacrosse.
7. Mark Holland (6)
To be honest, I’ve not yet worked out whether “averting a libel suit” should reflect positively or negatively on one’s ranking.
8. Marc Garneau (8)
9. Bruce Hyer (9)
10. Olivia Chow (10)
This Lucky Moose Bill sounds like the premise of a Law & Order episode.

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.