Chris Foulds, Kamloops This Week
Does Cathy McLeod like or dislike attack ads? Does our MP support marriages between gays? Does she think the current pension plan for MPs is fair?
All good questions to ask of your political representative and all questions any member of Parliament should be required to answer.
Unfortunately for her constituents of Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo, the second-term MP seems to have taken a page out of the Betty Hinton manual on talking but saying nothing as she emulates her predecessor's penchant for answering questions as though she was reading from a Conservative Party of Canada policy manual.
Our front-page story today talks about the possibility of McLeod garnering a cabinet position in the new Conservative majority government.
Former Conservative MP John Cummins, who is now leading the upstart B.C. Conservative Party, called McLeod bright, articulate and experienced. Cummins, not known for keeping his innermost thoughts to himself, added that McLeod "has opinions and is not afraid to express them."
Well, I'd say McLeod had opinions that, at one time, she was not afraid to express.
A year ago this month, KTW asked McLeod what she thought of attack ads painting Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff as something less than a true Canadian.
She answered the question: "Unfortunately, it seems the tactics have success or otherwise they wouldn't do this - but, again, do I like it? No."
Many were impressed with her candour then and McLeod was asked the same question at last month's pre-election debate - but she refused to answer, as she has done on the question of lucrative MP pensions.
Members of Parliament receive obscene amounts of money from taxpayers after serving just six years in Ottawa.
MPs are paid a staggering amount of money ($150,000 per year, not including generous bonuses for serving in cabinet or on various committees), receive severance pay found nowhere else in the real world (outside of well-paid CEOs) and are gifted with a pension plan that boggles the mind.
Where else can you get $24,000, at 55 years of age, after just six years on the job, and much more for every additional year at work? Where else can you get guaranteed payment regardless of market conditions? Where else can you get four bucks from taxpayers for every buck you toss in?
There is little doubt the plan is an affront to taxpayers.
Retiring MPs like Chuck Strahl and Jay Hill campaigned in 1993 as Reformers intent on pulling MPs' noses from the trough of taxpayer-laden dollars. The fact Strahl and Hill are among MPs settling back with their proboscises deep in that trough exemplifies the obscene hypocrisy of it all.
So, we asked McLeod a simple question: Do you support the current pension plan? A simple yes-or-no query - or so it would seem.
KTW reporter Jeremy Deutsch asked: "Do you think the $4 to $1 taxpayer to MP contribution ratio is fair, considering what some of the retiring MPs are getting?"
McLeod answered: "I won't speak to the pension issue specifically. We need to be looking across government in terms of what we're doing and where we're going and how we're going to get back to a balanced budget."
Deutsch tried again: "The private sector is, basically, $1 for us and $1 for the company. That seems to be what it is in the private sector. Is that something you would like to see in the public sector, for MPs?"
McLeod replied: "Again, I'll go back to my original comment in terms of we need to look at all expenditures in government."
So, McLeod refuses to say whether she agrees with the lucrative pension plan - for which she will be eligible in 3.5 years - or whether she believes it needs to be brought in line with reality.
Some have speculated McLeod was rapped on the knuckles by senior Conservatives for speaking honestly and refreshingly one year ago on the issue of attack ads.
Perhaps that is why our MP seems incapable of telling us what she thinks, rather than what the Conservative party wants her to say.
If so, it's another sad turn in politics, and one that reveals a heck of lot as to why voters are so turned off and rarely bother to vote anymore.
Christopher Foulds is editor of Kamloops This Week