X Marks the Spot

Paul Szabo, Mississauga South MP and the hardest-working man on Parliament Hill, took some time out to speak to The Mississauga News today before Question Period.

He was forthcoming, funny, and patient with this undereducated reporter. In other words, a brand new Paul Szabo. He seems reinvigorated by his work as chair of the Ethics Committee during this Mulroney-Schreiber money exchange study.

He also told me that he's having trouble getting Brian Mulroney to come to committee to take Schreiber's place in the centre ring of the circus.

"I'm having a little difficulty nailing down Brian Mulroney for Tuesday," said Szabo. "His spokesperson, Luc Lavoie, said okay, but then Luc stepped down, there's a new firm, and now that the Mulroney correspondance is in the public domain, there seems to be some concern about whether they should actually get their copy and study it and be better prepared, so they're balking on Tuesday. It might be Thursday, but there are rumours the house may rise for the Christmas break on Wednesday."

Szabo also said his committee - even though he has had a pencil thrown at him, been called a "son-of-a-b**ch" and a "disgrace," apologized for the public pantsing of Karlheinz Schreiber, made a lion jump through a flaming hoop and ridden a horse around the committee room while standing on his head and wearing sequins - is not, I repeat, NOT a circus.

"That's only tired rhetoric to call us that," he said while juggling chainsaws. "Judge us by our work. We're going to be judged by the public, and those are the people to whom we're accountable."

He also said people who expect the committee to work like a courtroom don't know what they're talking about.

"We're doing a study. If you understand what a study is, you'll understand why people can easily criticize us because we're not delivering justice, we're not examining, we're not like a court of law, we're not a public inquiry, we're doing a study, and the study is on the matters relating to the airbus settlement Brain Mulroney got for $2.1 million."

Here's why I really like Szabo as an MP. He seems to love his job, like really love the job, and not necessarily the political side of it.

"I really am honoured to be a member of parliament, and I have tremendous respect for the House of Commons, and I see this as a wonderful opportunity to showcase Parliament doing good work and showing how good we can do it," he said, as an elephant balanced on one leg behind him.

Szabo said the following when I asked him if chairing a committee a former prime minister is expected to testify in front of is daunting: "Prime Ministers are persons...They're regular people. They laugh, they are sad, they're happy, they're looking forward to things, they're human beings, they need social interaction. I've been here 14 years, this is very interesting, but I wouldn't say I'm overwhelmed."

This post was actually supposed to be about a brief email interview I did with Macleans magazine's Kady O'Malley, who has been liveblogging the committee hearings on her blog.

I asked her, among other things, how she rated Szabo's performance as chair.

She kindly and thoroughly responded:

"I think Szabo is making every effort to keep the high melodrama at committee to a dull roar; he may not always succeed, but it's a noble goal, and he's clearly managed to tuck away his own partisan leanings in order to be as fair as possible. It really is a trial by fire, as far as his relatively new status as chair of this particular committee; in just over a month, he's had to contend with everything from hostile routine motions to the logistics of springing a witness from jail. That's more than most committee chairs will have to deal with during an entire career. He also manages to lay down the law without completely losing his temper, although he does get a bit snappish at times. Not that I blame him.

"Is it a thankless job? Pretty much, but I think he genuinely enjoys it; he is a true devotee of Parliament, and it shows.

"Best person for the job? That's a tough one. There are a few -- not many , but a few - MPs -not on this committee, but in the House - who are more deft at untangling the rules of procedure, and wrangling members into submission, but he's shown himself to be a quick study, and has the benefit of wise advice from people like Derek Lee, who literally wrote the book on the powers of committee to summon witnesses and subpoena documents, not to mention the institutional knowledge within Parliament itself, from the Law Clerk to the staff of this particular committee. Historically, he's never been a kneejerk partisan pit bull, which means he has earned the respect of members of other parties as well, which helps - although when tempers flare, it's easy for that to be forgotten in a fit of pencil-throwing pique."

The next episode of the Karlheinz and Brian show airs tomorrow at 11 a.m.