Parliamentary Participaction

What price too high for lazy men and women to activate themselves bipedally? Those of us normal citizens in society whom the medical community urge to get out there, climb stairs, take a walk, swing a golf club, go swimming, do anything to exercise muscles and partake in some healthful body movement for the sake of our health take the advice seriously. Or at least we should. We walk to the corner to pick up a newspaper, stroll down to the park, make an effort to move.

And then there are Canada's elected Parliamentarians, and the appointed Senators who sit in the House of Commons and Senate to ponder matters related to the running of the country's profound affairs. Who sit in the offices. Sit in the Senate Chambers, sit in the cafeteria and the dining rooms of Parliament, sit for Question Period, and probably climb a few stairs to arrive at their offices in the Centre Block, in the West and East Block and elsewhere they are appointed to sit.

But they cannot extend themselves too strenuously to walk the block from one building to another. They are simply too preciously endowed and considered to exercise their legs and their bodies to take a five, ten, even twenty-minute walk that would clear their heads, oxygenate their lungs, and give their hearts a little reason to pump a little faster.

We've no idea what it costs for the shuttle buses that regularly run MPs from one venue to another on Parliament Hill. But we are apprised of the fact that because of renovations to the Parliament Buildings, offices have been re-assigned elsewhere within a short distance and as a result the network of shuttle buses has added additional routes with 7 new bus drivers, extending the equivalent of roughly four city blocks in area.

At a cost of just over a half-million dollars, according to minutes from the Board of Internal Economy. That fleet of neat little green buses, on special assignment on Parliament Hill to ferry our lawmakers hither and yon on that exalted plain over the Ottawa River ensures that they need not exercise themselves unduly.

We've no idea of the entire cost of operating the shuttle service, but if it was a necessity there would be no argument respecting the cost. Is it necessary to coddle the sit-tolerant bodies of adult men and women who should of their own accord prefer to walk rather than be ferried about constantly within a very limited area - an extremely pleasant one at that?