Are they hard at work? Or hardly working?

Much has been made about the revolution of the back bench Liberal MP’s over those denied pay raises in Ottawa, a situation that has caused for public outrage, an outrage expressed most eloquently by sean incognito. Indeed, our elected officials in the national Capital seem of the opinion that we don’t appreciate their hard work, sacrifice and expense account savvy. They believe they are most deserving of a topping up of the bank account, its a chance to sock away some more RRSP monies, maybe buy that second SUV, keep the family well provided for and of course keep up the Gov’t pension plan contributions while their at it.

All of which we should consider against the backdrop of the average Canadian worker, you know the rest of us, the ones who eke out our meagre existences, willingly sending our tax dollars off to Ottawa to be funnelled into the trough. Surely we can relate to the financial travails and the onerous demands of those that must get by on $141,000 (not including the tax free perks and travel allowances that go with such a demanding job).

So while we wait for the long list of whiners and malcontents to leak its way into the public domain (a sure fire don’t rehire list if ever there was one), give a thought to perhaps how hard done by the folks in Ottawa really are; compared to their provincial counterparts.

Take those hard working legislators in Victoria as a case in point. After a particularly stressful first four days of the fall session of the BC Legislature, the Liberal gov’t and its two opposition members will be taking a week off to digest the turkey and enjoy some fall colours. Not wanting to over exert themselves after a lengthy four month summer vacation, the Legislature has already cleared out and will be a ghost town for seven days.

After that chance to recharge the batteries, our MLA’s will be back hard at whatever it is they do, for twelve days and then since no one should have to sacrifice so much time and work so hard, they will then break for another seven days.

With that all too brief respite, they’ll be back hard at (ahem er, uh) work for eight days, and then its clear the calendar time, they are out of the House until after the New Year.

Now for those wondering, out of the 71 possible sitting days since the House last sat on May 20th, our elected officials will have actually sat down in the House for 24 sessions by the time we ring in 2005. 24 days work in seven months, how can they possibly keep that pace! And never on a Friday, for our legislators it’s a three day weekend for every week that they must spend time chained to their desk.

God have pity on Paul Martin when his pack of malcontent MP’s get wind of what’s going on out on the West Coast. As a public service for our Federal MP’s looking for a visual aid when they next tackle the PM, here’s the BC Legislature calendar. Working days are blue, off days are white, make sure PM the PM notices the amount of white space on the calendar.

All of this makes you wonder what Ujjal Dosanjh was thinking of though when he went into Federal politics, compared to what goes on in the BC Leg, his time in Ottawa may actually resemble hard work. At least in that rarefied world of politics!