Here's a challenge to the MPs who want to call an election right now, less than a year after the previous one. Why not save the country some money. You should resign your seats, we can have by-elections in your ridings, and be done with it.

Personally I would like to see the Gomery Inquiry publish it's completed report, likely due in the fall, before parties begin using it as a political tool to fight an election with. Calling an election during the hearings would most likely derail the inquiry and force us to wait even longer before we hear what happened. If Stephen Harper's Tories are confident that the government acted scandalously, then there is nothing to lose by waiting 6 months.

Of course the recent Tory surge in the polls may have subsided by then, But surely Harper would agree that the completion of the inquiry is more important than appearing to set his party's focus based solely on polling data.

If an election will be called based on the inquiry, it would be better to wait until the inquiry releases it's report.

Should parliamentarians be subject to the same laws as the rest of us? Or are they somehow above the law, like BC Premier Gordon Campbell when he basically got off "scott-free" on his DUI charge in Hawaii a few years ago?

This week, Peter Mackay was given 2 back to back week-long driving suspensions for two separate speeding infractions last fall. However the judge agreed to postpone the suspensions until late May, when Mackay will be out of the country anyway, in Australia.

Should Mackay be trivializing his punishment like this, or should he be setting an example as the deputy leader of the party that wants so desperately to govern this country?


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From the Globe and Mail, April 12:


New Glasgow, N.S — Peter MacKay will join the ranks of pedestrians for two weeks next month.
The Central Nova MP and deputy Conservative leader will serve back-to-back seven-day driving suspensions, beginning May 21, after being caught speeding twice last year.
Mr. MacKay was to go to trial in New Glasgow on Monday on one of the charges, but a lawyer pleaded guilty on his behalf.
An RCMP officer clocked Mr. MacKay going 134 km/h in a 100 km/h zone on Highway 104 in Broadway, N.S., on Nov. 11.
Mr. MacKay told the officer he was late for a function.
The same officer pulled Mr. MacKay over on Dec. 23 on Highway 6 in Caribou River, N.S., for going 109 km/h in an 80 km/h zone.
Mr. MacKay had already pleaded guilty to the second charge and was set to take his week-long driving suspension the week of April 24.
His lawyer, Craig Clarke, requested Monday that the original suspension date be changed because of Mr. MacKay's schedule. The Crown consented and the judge agreed to apply both suspensions in May.
According to Mr. Clarke, Mr. MacKay will be in Australia at that time.
The MP was fined a total of $430 for both offences.

Scott Brison and Peter Mackay were long considered the heirs apparent of the Progressive Conservative Party. Blah blah blah, then one day....
The two men found themselves on opposite sides of the aisle in the House of Commons, neither a PC anymore. And neither has done a very good job in their attempts to excuse their new party's policies and mistakes (as seen each week on Craig Oliver's Question Period).

Brison was not even a member of the Liberal Party when the alleged sponsorship mafia was at work in the Liberal party. So why is he being put in a position to defend the party from those acts?

Anyway I have to get ready for work.