Ottawa

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry

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