I’m not much for books (most blog posts are too long for my attention span). But this proposed expose on the House of Commons by former Liberal MP Michelle Simson is sure to be at the top of my reading list.
OTTAWA — The House of Commons is deeply in trouble and needs fixing, says a former Liberal MP, who plans to pen the messy details about the lower chamber in a book this year.
Ottawa is a place where MPs have little power, legislators are purposefully kept in the dark, parliamentarians cannot freely express their opinions, and colleagues shun you if you act independently, said Michelle Simson, the former Scarborough Southwest MP who was defeated in the May 2 federal election.
Simson received national attention last spring when she became the first MP to publicly disclose her detailed office expenses. It was a move that ostracized her from her colleagues, she said.
“There was a price to pay for that, a personal price for me to pay,” she told Postmedia News in an interview. “I’m talking anywhere in the House: Conservative, NDP. They still want to maintain this wall of secrecy.”
