James MacLeod’s weekend piece on a day-in-the-life of a typical backbench MHA is a pretty good read.
It probably isn’t much of an eye-opener to folks who view their Member’s role in the same manner as Tom Osborne, Kevin Hutchings or Marshall Dean (the three MHAs mentioned in the article) describe. To others, it might lead to some wondering why we bother with a legislature, or why its members need to be on full-time payroll, or why we need 48 of them.
“In fact, backbench MHAs don’t actually do that much when the House is open. Outside of the occasional speech during debate, and the high-intensity theatrics of question period, mostly they just sit there.
During a normal day in the House, it’s not unusual to see an MHA reading the newspaper while sitting in the legislature.
Arguably, it’s when the legislature closes and they go back to their districts that rank-and-file MHAs earn their annual salary of $95,000.”
Read the full article here.
My own rant on a somewhat-related topic from earlier this month, is here.
