Election countdown changes character of break weeks for members of Parliament

OTTAWA – Before question period even ended, members of Parliament were making for the exits, carry-on bags in hand to get home to their ridings for the first constituency week of this sitting.

The rush isn’t just to catch planes or beat the highway traffic. Time in the riding is limited and precious, especially in the year leading up to an election.

Unless the government chooses to drop the writ sooner, the next voting day is almost exactly a year away: Oct. 19, 2015.

As elections near, door-knocking in the ridings gets more political because politics is more often on people’s minds, said NDP MP Don Davies, who represents Vancouver Kingsway.

“To that extent, I think they may have an importance that perhaps break weeks in Year 1 or Year 2 don’t have,” he said.

The decision this week to go to war in Iraq will also change the dynamic at the doors, Davies said.

“I think that’s a political issue of a unique type that engages Canadians in a profound way,” he said.“People will want to talk about it and it will continue to be on their minds.”

All three parties kicked off the fall sitting with election-style energy.

The New Democrats launched a new slogan, the Liberals had leader Justin Trudeau give a prime-time speech and Prime Minister Stephen Harper laid out his fall agenda not in Parliament but at a Conservative party rally in dowtown Ottawa.

All three major parties have made it clear they know the countdown is on. Harper demonstrated it explicity on Thursday by wrapping up the first segment of the fall sitting by making a campaign-style stop and a campaign-style announcement in Whitby, Ont.

As promised just before the 2011 campaign, the government will be doubling the child fitness tax credit, Harper said.

It’s part of a series of announcements expected to roll out over the coming months as the Tories aim to spend the surplus they’re anticiapting next year.

Those kinds of promises are gold for Tory MPs going door-to-door during constituency week.

For some members of Parliament who’ve seen their ridings rejigged as part of the seat redistribution process, the weeks away from Ottawa are their only chance to introduce themselves to thousands of new constituents.

“It’s tricky for me,” said Lethbridge Conservative MP Jim Hillyer.

His current riding has reconfigured and he’s decided to run instead in the newly created riding of Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner in the next election.

“I was elected to represent the current riding but the new folks they are going to want to make sure they get to know me before the election so in a break week, I need to make sure I take care of my official duties,” he said.

“But I will keep spending more time when I have more time in the riding in the new part as well.”

In Quebec, some New Democratic Party MPs have been working to get themselves known since the 2011 campaign, when their party surged to an unexpected victory in that province.

It’s felt a bit like campaign mode there ever since.

Alexandrine Latendresse, the NDP MP for Louis-Saint-Laurent, says she’ll be stepping up the number of events she attends and will make sure to keep going door-to-door as well.

“There is a lot of canvassing going on, which is fun — people are always asking: ‘Is there an election now?’ And I say: ‘No, I’m just your MP,’” she said.

Then there are the MPs for whom the 2015 campaign will be their first general election — Calgary Centre Conservative MP Joan Crockatt is among them. She was elected in a by-election in November 2012.

Crockatt too is still working on getting herself known.

“You’re just continuously out there in the constituency as much as you possibly can especially when you’re a new MP like me,” she said. “You want to make sure everybody knows that you’re working hard.”

Follow Stephanie Levitz on Twitter @stephanielevitz