Canada PoliticsMPs flog pet causes on social media
Canada’s newest crop of politicians is already hard at work taking their pet causes to social media in their efforts to win hearts and minds.
NDP MP Kennedy Stewart wasted no time crowd-sourcing opinion on what his priorities should be.
“Please take my survey and help me set my priorities as your new Member of Parliament for Burnaby South,” he first posted on Facebook late last month, with a link to the questionnaire created using the online tool SurveyMonkey.
It’s not clear how many people responded, but Stewart took the two issues with the highest percentage of votes and put them in a Twitter survey to his followers.
“Interesting! Affordable housing is the top issue according to my Twitter poll. Over on Facebook, #StopKinderMorgan is #1. Thx for voting!” he tweeted.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan has been live-tweeting her attempt to live on welfare wages.
“#WelfareFoodChallenge Day 2 Dinner: 1 slice of bread + apple w/peanut butter + kiwi. Was feeling wozzy!” she posted last Wednesday.
Kwan and singer Bif Naked agreed to take the challenge posed by advocacy group Raise the Rates: Participants are allowed to spend just $3 per day on food for one week — the same amount British Columbia welfare recipients have for groceries after paying for rent, a bus pass and phone, the group says.
“#WelfareFoodChallenge Couldn’t join colleagues 4 a bite 2 eat. Ate my rations $21/wk not enuf,” Kwan posted the next day.
Then on Friday Kwan tweeted “#WelfareFoodChallenge Same rations as Day 2. Each night going to bed hungry but thankful for clean water in Canada.”
Kwan was silent over the weekend and had not checked in by late afternoon on Monday, the day the challenge was to end. Kwan did not respond to a request for comment.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel’s pet cause is to challenge the idea that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet has gender parity.
Canada’s new PM was lauded around the world for giving ministerial posts to 15 women. His reasoning — “Because it’s 2015” — garnered international attention and became a trending topic.
But as an article on the website iPolitics first pointed out, four of them were appointed ministers of state — a junior position that doesn’t hold the same responsibilities or salary of a full minister.
“Nothing like fake gender parity with a bonus gender pay gap,” Rempel, herself a minister of state under Stephen Harper, tweeted on Thursday.
Rempel, who never backs away from a political debate on Twitter, got into it with a number of users, many of whom accused her of sour grapes or just general nastiness.
“Wow. You just can’t be nice JUST ONCE! Disgusting,” one responded.
Rempel then doubled down, posting the list of cabinet committees and pointing out that only three of the 10 are chaired by women, before shutting down the discussion, which took place between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The Prime Minister’s Office later said it would move to fix the wage disparity for ministers of state, though did not provide a timeline, according to iPolitics. Rempel has so far not commented.
