While I support making Canadians fill out the long form census, I think it is insane for the Liberals to muse about an emergency recall of MPs to Parliament in the middle of the summer recess. First of all you know the Liberals have to be bluffing because if they call everyone back to work in the middle of their vacations, how many do you think will actually show up? We are talking about the party who has great difficulty getting their members to show up when Parliament is in session, much less when they are on vacation.
Just as a refresher, here is a list of Liberal MPs and their voting absences in the last session of Parliament (you may or may not recall their manufactured prorogation outrage where they insisted on the importance of MPs being allowed to work. I love this "How'd they vote" site. I wonder if the Liberal MPs knew that somebody would be counting all those 1787 times one of them ducked out of work early for Happy Hour.
Voting Absences from March to June (for perspective, roughly 70% of the Tory caucus missed 5 votes or less; the average Liberal missed 23 votes, for 1787 total absences):
Member of Parliament Absences
Michael Ignatieff 63
Jim Karygiannis 56
Marc Garneau 51
Denis Coderre 49
Irwin Cotler 45
Stéphane Dion 41
Pablo Rodriguez 40
Keith Martin 39
Anita Neville 38
Raymonde Folco 36
Ruby Dhalla 36
Mario Silva 34
Dan McTeague 33
Navdeep Bains 33
Justin Trudeau 33
Glen Pearson 32
John Cannis 31
John McKay 31
Carolyn Bennett 31
Albina Guarnieri 31
Bernard Patry 31
Larry Bagnell 30
Bryon Wilfert 30
David McGuinty 29
Derek Lee 29
Marlene Jennings 29
Gerard Kennedy 29
Lawrence MacAulay 29
Jean-Claude D'Amours 27
Michelle Simson 27
Todd Russell 26
Joyce Murray 26
Scott Andrews 26
Joe Volpe 25
Sukh Dhaliwal 25
Andrew Kania 24
Frank Valeriote 24
Francis Scarpaleggia 23
Ujjal Dosanjh 23
Judy Sgro 22
Martha Hall Findlay 22
Rob Oliphant 21
Borys Wrzesnewskyj 20
Kirsty Duncan 19
Bonnie Crombie 19
Anthony Rota 19
Marcel Proulx 18
Yasmin Ratansi 18
John McCallum 17
Scott Brison 17
Massimo Pacetti 17
Mauril Bélanger 17
Maria Minna 17
Gurbax Malhi 16
Brian Murphy 15
Maurizio Bevilacqua 15
Ralph Goodale 14
Hedy Fry 14
Mark Holland 13
Geoff Regan 13
Alan Tonks 13
Mark Eyking 13
Ken Dryden 13
Alexandra Mendes 12
Dominic LeBlanc 12
Gerry Byrne 11
Lise Zarac 11
Wayne Easter 10
Michael Savage 8
Scott Simms 6
Siobhan Coady 6
Judy Foote 6
Shawn Murphy 4
Paul Szabo 3
Rodger Cuzner 1
Peter Milliken 0
Recall Parliament, is that the latest idea of liberal handlers to get iggy off the bus.
ReplyDeleteI see a need for the long form census as well. However, I think it should be voluntary. If I were to receive one with no governmental coercion to make me fill it out I would take the time to do so. Even though I resent giving the government any personal information, including even my name, I can see the value of these numbers in allotting funding for certain programs. If I were to get one under the threat of governmental sanctions, I would lie like a cheap rug.
ReplyDeleteFor crying out loud - can we not get through this dreary, cold, wet July (in AB) without threats of Parliament being called into emergency session. The national angst shoud be centred on the mushrooms growing in my front lawn! Methinks the only people who think this is a national crisis are the Liberals and statisticians. Can't be too many of those these days. My apologies to the number crunchers. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteWhy are the leftists crying over something that most should support with every strand of their DNA?
ReplyDeleteThey decry the intrusion, but love the fact that it presents them with a ready made shake down list..one that enables them to extort money from the govt for social re-engineering schemes.
I can see them doing this, after all, all the opposition parties are made up of left-wing statist.
ReplyDeleteThe liberal party in particular always need to know which way the wind is blowing before tyin--er--I mean applying their Velcro to their shoes... for safety. They couldn't be walking around with each others shoe laces gummed up or tied to the wrong shoe.
Not that they would necessarily trip over their own feet but that they would often tie themselves to someone else's and walk away either dragging someone along like What Dryden did with little "Ignatius" recently... or they'd run off in a sprint wildly with the extra shoes flailing away hitting innocent bystanders in the shins.
Liberals do often forget that Parliament is not JK and you still can't go running around with scissors much less with untied shoe laces... Which David Coderre was the guilty of the most often do to his stubby fingers. He may not have trouble getting through a tub of chicken wings but shoe tying is a whole other skill set. One that can't be done effortlessly like normal well adjusted individuals.
Nay, to a liberal, they look down on such ones, while projecting that "it is THEM who can't look after themselves or spend their own money and must be controlled!" Not because they are envious of their shoe tying abilities but because they are jealous and feel upstaged.
So in their disgruntled rage they swear to themselves that someday they will be the ones with all the shoe laces so that no one can best them again.
Hmmm,It seems to me,if i remember this correctly,the Conservatives are the Government right now.How the hell can the Liberals recall parliament.???????
ReplyDeleteA few months ago, I got a phone call from a polling company, working for the federal gov't, which asked me a bunch of questions related to aboriginal policy. I have yet to see anything policy-wise coming from Minister Strahl on that stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised if he does eventually make some moves.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I bring this up ? Well, we've read that this government, even more than Paul Martin's, does a lot of polling. So I'm pretty sure that Minister Clement did some polling on these census changes. And watching his resolve to stay the course, during yesterday's press conference, I suspect he's got solid polling data to back him up.
Meanwhile, the Libs et al, are pretty well flying by the seat of their pants, in trying to figure out how the public feels about this census stuff. Kinsella may be warning them to back off, as there is a net loss for them in this.
And yes, I agree that they are bluffing about this recall of Parliament. It's all part of their "act", to appear tough, pushing back on that "bully" Harper, and the like. Their audience is the Lib base, whose morale has taken a hit, and needs to see more "victories in these individual battles" (as Tom Flanagan described it a few weeks ago).
The Libs want to recall to stop the "Under the Bus Tour" so Iffy can't say anymore off the cuff stuff. LOL
ReplyDeleteI say recall then, I dare ya, and call a confidence motion on day one! Lets get this election on the go!
"So I'm pretty sure that Minister Clement did some polling on these census changes."
ReplyDeleteDetermining whether or not scrapping the mandatory long-form census is *popular* doesn't aid anyone one iota in determining whether the decision is *right*.
I don't understand the Conservative hardheadedness on this issue.