It one of the most unfair arrows that the Parliamentary Press Gallery fires at members of Parliament, this idea that once Parliament adjourns for the summer, MPs head to the lake and put their feet up.
This year’s reporting of the June 25 summer parliamentary adjournment for a scheduled 12-week summer break was often particularly snide. Parliament resumed June 2 and little more than three weeks later, they go on holidays.
Poor pampered babies. The taxpayer-friendly Sun Media chain was particularly vicious.
Well hopefully, MPs will get some holiday time. They work long hours most of the time and have just been through a grueling five week election campaign.
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But in truth, weekends and summers back in the riding are no holiday.
Constituents want a piece of their time, communities want to see them at events, party officials want them at this or that event — as very public people, they have a difficult time finding private down time unless they leave.
It will be a busy summer for MPs on the agriculture files as they prepare for the explosive debates that await them in the autumn. On both sides of the issue, they will be studying the nuances of Canadian Wheat Board and Canadian Grain Commission reform and spending time meeting with industry allies and trying to build coalitions.
For the more than 100 rookie MPs elected May 2, summer will be a time to get up to speed on the issues ands their new constituencies.
For many of those rookie New Democratic Party MPs elected unexpectedly in Quebec, it will be a time to take French lessons and perhaps tour their new ridings for the first time.
So it isn’t a 12-week holiday, as some cynical journalists and skeptical voters sometimes imagine.
Constituency work is work.
But at least MPs distant from Ottawa will get to spend more time with their families and neighbours and less time in airports flying to and from the capital.
