A Few Things

I’m finally back home in Ottawa after two weeks of music camp and a yearlong sojourn in the French capital.

There hasn’t really been that much breaking political news as parliamentarians are currently enjoying three and a half months of leave, but there are a few little events on which I’d like to comment.

I just read this morning in the Ottawa Citizen that the government has decided to put an end to the tradition of MPs being served free gourmet hot meals by replacing the current Parliament Hill French restaurant with a canteen service which will serve the members airline meals packaged in a west Ottawa plant. I have to applaud Conservative MPs for so happily forfeiting such a luxury for the good of the Canadian taxpayer, but I think they may have been pushing things a little too far by having themselves served airline food. On my flight back from Paris yesterday, I was served Air Canada food. And although it wasn’t as awful as I expected, I don’t think I would have wanted to have it before question period or a committee meeting. That’s why I’m feeling apprehensive! Our country needs its parliamentarians to do a good job, and if they’re eating airline food, that may become more difficult…

I’ve also heard that Harper decided to schedule by-elections in two Quebec ridings, including the traditional Liberal stronghold of Outremont, for the 17^th of September. It will be extremely interesting to see how these contests play out, as all four parties will have a shot at winning a seat. It’s sad to see that by-elections weren’t called in the four other vacant ridings, including those of Bob Rae and Martha Hall-Findlay, but the costs savings of calling them all at once are actually quite minimal, and previous Prime-Ministers have been just as bad.