setUoYouRPROFILE's blog: "tufui"

OTTAWA — The House of Commons was dark Sunday. Row by row, chairs leaned forward, propped up against the empty desks politicians normally occupy. On Monday, the chairs will be upright and darkness removed,gucci outlet shedding light on a House of Commons with three parties searching for a permanent leader when the fall session official begins. MPs from the Bloc Quebecois, the Liberals and the NDP, which lost leader Jack Layton to cancer in August, will have to rely on their caucus for support, meaning a heavier emphasis on caucus discipline for rookies and veterans alike, said one former NDP MP. “The hardest thing is being without a leader,” said Judy Wasylycia-Leis, who served as NDP caucus chair from 2005 to 2009. “Caucus . . . it’s your family. It has your back.” After a “baptism by fire” in the brief spring session following the May election —_a session that included a 58-hour filibuster to delay back-to-work legislation for locked-out postal workers — it now comes time for MPs to make Ottawa work for Canadians, she said. “This isn’t about being a seat warmer or being a trained seal,” said Wasylycia-Leis, who served as MP for Winnipeg North from 1997 until her retirement in 2010. “It’s about making a difference.” That message was one of many given to about 45 returning MPs over the weekend as they trickled back to Parliament Hill for an orientation session with panel discussions with former MPs, staffers and academics. While the session was geared toward rookie MPs to learn the ins-and-outs of a job they have already started, it was also a moment for their families to do some learning as well. Tara Sharkey took the place of her husband, rookie Liberal MP Ted Hsu from Kingston, Ont. Hsu was back in the riding of Kingston and the Islands for events with the couple’s daughters, Ella, 8, and 19-month-old Vera-Claire. “It helps me to understand the whole landscape. The better I understand this landscape, the easier we can function as a family,” Sharkey said. That meant learning about the daily routine of an MP, how to best communicate with Hsu while he’s on Parliament Hill — the family Skypes each morning and evening during the week — and make the best use of weekends when Hsu can head home to his constituency. “It just allows us to know how the day-to-day works and to know the event schedule in Kingston,” she said. Balancing those family and personal needs with demands from constituents, House of Commons duties and the advances of lobbyists can be a formidable workload for any MP, Wasylycia-Leis said. “It’s overwhelming. The biggest thing for MPs is to deal with being inundated,” she said.