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A member of the provincial legislature or the Parliament of Canada who is asked to take on the responsibilities of also serving the governing party as a cabinet minister takes on additional responsibilities as well as their duties as a member.
Serving as an MPP or MP is not a 9-to-5 job and it invariably involves travel away from your constituency unless you live in Ottawa or a provincial capital.
Elected members run their own office and staff, answer inquiries from the public, serve on committees, are required to attend in Parliament and legislatures, among other things.
Travel can be risky, even on sunny summer days. Travel is only glamorous unless you have had to do it for a living.
Being represented by a cabinet minister is an asset to a riding. Cabinet ministers have extra clout when their office requests assistance from the bureaucracy. That is an apolitical statement, which applies to all elected representatives, no matter what political party they represent.
We in Simcoe North are fortunate to have the Honourable Jill Dunlop as our MPP and also serving as the minister for colleges and universities. She recently introduced the Strengthening Post-secondary Institutions and Students Act, which is designed to further protect students by providing measures for post-secondary institutions to address faculty and staff sexual misconduct toward students on campus.
I am sure you will agree with me that this is an important initiative.
That is why it is so ridiculous to see a picture of a young woman carrying a sign labelled “MISSING” and another one labelled “#ABSENTEE MPP” who is apparently going to appear at a political rally on Friday, Dec. 2, 2022.
You can’t prepare a bill, introduce it, and shepherd it through to completion from your riding office.
Doug Lewis
Orillia
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