Friday, June 03, 2005

Sticking to the vital issues

I'm not sure if anybody keeps track of the most pointless use of the floor in Parliament, but we have a serious contender here.
Conservative Maurice Vellacott used his member's statement yesterday to argue that Paul Henderson should be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada(!) for his goal in the 1972 Summit Series.
So what factors make for a complete waste of time? A few suggestions here, and Vellacott's statement is virtually unmatched in all of them.
(1) Is the issue utterly irrelevant to constituents? Check.
(2) Is it a dated issue which could have been brought up at any number of times before the present session? Uhhuh.
(3) Does it demand action that the House has no authority to take? That it does.
Of course, I'm open to nominations for more useless statements. But this has to at least make the shortlist.

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