Jody Wilson-Raybould is making waves again. She's refusing to leave her minister's office, even though she is now an independent MP. Susan Delacourt writes:
Rank matters when it comes to Parliament Hill real estate — offices are allocated on the basis of which party holds the most seats and which MPs hold the most significant positions within their parties.
Wilson-Raybould, as an Independent, is now at the bottom of the pecking order for office space and is not pleased that this means a downgrade in her working conditions.
“It seems a little bit petty to me,” Wilson-Raybould told CBC News. “It makes no sense to remove me from my MP office. So I don’t understand why they’re wanting to do it.”
There are those who will argue that the white men in Parliament are picking on an indigenous woman. But there's an interesting wrinkle to this story:
The mere suggestion of an Indigenous woman being ousted from her land (in this case, six rooms of office space) makes this whole drama somewhat freighted — and polarizing, just as the SNC story was. Once again, there are going to be people eager to portray Wilson-Raybould as a victim of white privilege in the political corridors of power.
There’s a complicating wrinkle to that story though: the minister who is supposed to move into Wilson-Raybould’s space is also Indigenous: Minister of Northern Affairs Dan Vandal, a newly elected Métis MP from Winnipeg.
Wilson-Raybould has a reputation for being stubborn -- whether on her legislation on assisted dying or her position on SNC Lavalin. Obviously, she's still the same person she was before the election. From her perspective, nothing has changed. After all, she is still in the same seat she occupied before the national vote.
Image: The National Observer
