All that whinging last week of how overpaid MPs are leading to a Parliament of political lifers, not to mention earlier concerns that some MPs earned income above their parliamentary salaries has me wondering how MPs have fared, salary-wise, over the ages. At the time of Confederation, 1867, MPs were paid a measly $6 per day, up to a total of $600 annually (the CBC and this book differ slightly i... [More]

News-hounds, how do you rank? The Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson's Quiz 2009 is available (in two parts), and the NYT's Gail Collins' is here. They both tally your results, and the Globe is kind enough to compare your performance against all the others taking the quiz. Similar to my performance against the year-end book lists, I resolve to improve in 2010.

Thanks to Aaron Wherry for drawing attention to this panel on our current Parliament, featuring The Star's Susan Delacourt, The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson and Rick Salutin, Queen's professor Ned Franks and the University of Saskatchewan's Janice MacKinnon, and moderated by The Agenda's Steve Paikin. If you don't want to spend 35 minutes watching, you can read Simpson's take here and Salutin's here. ... [More]