Let's have a Parliament with only childless Toronto MPs

I'm surprised by the attention that Russ Hiebert, the MP for South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale, has received for his expenses.

As far as I know, Hiebert is not one of the 29 MPs who have cost taxpayers millions in lawsuits (though, if he is, that too would not be particularly remarkable -- any company, private or public, is liable for the actions of their employees done in the course of their employment).

No, the attention on Hiebert is because he has followed the Parliamentary travel guidelines that allow MPs to bring their spouses and young children with them to Ottawa then the House sits.

Here's CTV's story on the subject, and here are 200 others mentioning him on Google News.

So Hiebert hasn't stolen any money, Adscam-style. He hasn't broken any rules. He hasn't engaged in reckless behaviour on the taxpayers' dime. And he hasn't dreamed up some wasteful new program, spending billions of our tax dollars. But he has been the subject of enormous criticism because he flies his family out to Ottawa with him.

He hasn't violated any Parliamentary rules. Just some unwritten media rules.

So let's write down those rules for all to see.

Rule 1: MPs who live in Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal are better than MPs who live in B.C. (or, even worse, the B.C. interior or Vancouver Island) because it costs less for them to travel to Ottawa. So Liberals are better than Conservatives -- what a surprise!

Rule 2: MPs who don't have families, or who don't want to spend time with their families, or who are divorced from their families after spending long stretches of time away from them, are better than MPs who bring their families to Ottawa.

Rule 3: If you are a B.C. Conservative MP with a family, you are more odious than a drunk-driving hipster Liberal MP from Montreal and will get more media criticism.

Look, I'm all for cutting the budget, and I think Parliament's half a billion dollar annual expense could surely use a trim. I'd cut far deeper than that -- like Tom Flanagan, I'm embarrassed by the government's "green fund" and other expenditures they feel are required to survive politically in an era of minority Parliaments.

But does anyone think that Canada's fiscal situation is going to be saved by making Parliament Hill even less family-friendly, to save a few hundred thousand dollars a year? If anything, I would imagine the parent of a young family would be more budget-conscious in general than an empty-nester. But that's not even the point.

This story would not have been written if Hiebert were a mom instead of a dad -- oh, unless that mom was a Conservative, who would then be accused of being a poor mother. But that's not the big point here either.

And this isn't about my sympathy for a Tory.

This is about my understanding of the enormous efforts that western, northern and rural MPs of every partisan stripe take just to get to Ottawa. For some MPs, the idea of going home on weekends is simply a logistical impossibility.

If, God forbid, Parliament Hill were ever moved to a place like Calgary or St. John's or Nunavut, family travel allowances wouldn't be the subject of breathless attempts at scandalmongering by bored journalists. Family travel allowances would be a holy sacrament from which Toronto and Montreal MPs would righteously wring out every last penny, and woe to any journalist (why do you hate the children so?) who dared criticize it.