Parliament back Monday, Or, "How I Kept Speaker Scheer's chair warm"

Queen's Model Parliament 2013 - 4 - Version 2
The Queen’s University Model Parliament earlier this month with Speaker Akin presiding …

MPs return to Ottawa and the House of Commons Monday after a Christmas break which began on Dec. 12. Back in their ridings, government MPs handed out more than 150 cheques for new highways, curling club improvements, training for the disabled, marina improvements and all sorts of other things. The grand total for all those cheque presentations? $1.5 billion. So, for the sake of the federal treasury if nothing else, let me be the first to welcome the country’s MPs back to the House of Commons.

While they were gone, incidentally, students from Queen’s University moved in to hold their annual Model Parliament. The folks from Queen’s were kind enough to invite me to be Speaker for an hour, an experience which I very much enjoyed and which also gave me a slightly new appreciation for the job Speakers Milliken and Scheer have done. (The MPs for the Queen’s Model Parliament were exemplary in their behaviour compared to the real thing!)

In any event: Welcome back and happy new year, Speaker Scheer! I — and several other others — did our best to keep the (very comfortable) warm while you were gone!

Queen's Model Parliament 2013 - 1 - Version 2
Speaker Akin, settling in for debate at the Queen’s Model Parliament 2013

2 thoughts on “Parliament back Monday, Or, "How I Kept Speaker Scheer's chair warm"”

  1. Maybe things need to change on the hill so that politicians start to act like they are actually working to solve the problems Canadians have and not the problems politicians have with one another. Civility is what I thought Stephen Harper promised when he first became Prime Minister. Like his government we have seen little if any change for the better.

  2. most MPs actually are already working to solve the problems Canadians have, only they do it in the anonymity of their offices. The people you should be dumping on are in the Cabinet, where the policies affecting Canadians as a whole are thrashed out and voted on. The poor old MPs only get to vote yea or nay on them when they become bills and have practically no part in their advent. It is a crying shame that the “people of Canada” don’t have a clue as to how things get done in their Parliament. The Prime Minister of the day is almost a dictator in the fact that he chooses his cabinet and they stay as long as they don’t “mess up” the Prime Minister’s chances of reelection.

    Why don’t you try educating your fellow Canadians about how it works behind the curtains?

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