Patrick Brown has third worst vote attendance record among Conservative MPs

According to Hansard, Barrie MP Patrick Brown has missed 38 recorded votes held in the House of Commons since Parliament resumed in September, giving Brown the third worst vote attendance record for the fall session in the 161-member Conservative caucus.

Of the two Conservative MPs who attended fewer votes than Brown, one is a cabinet minister who underwent surgery and another is a fellow backbencher who missed just one more vote than Brown.

Another Conservative MP, who was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer, did not return to Parliament for the fall session.

On November 18th, Brown began a streak of 27 consecutive missed votes with Vote #275 and would not vote again until Vote #302 three weeks later on December 8th.

Unlike some of his Conservative colleagues, who obviously have legitimate medical reasons for missing votes, the only explanation for Brown's absences seems to be his self-serving ambition to become leader of the Ontario PC Party.

During Brown's three-week long period of missed votes, some of the reasons for his failure to vote on behalf of his Barrie constituents include participating in the November 24th Ontario PC Party leadership candidates debate in Sudbury and appearing on television on to discuss his provincial leadership campaign.

Although Brown held the 'official' launch of his campaign for the leadership of the Ontario PC Party on September 28th, the unofficial campaign began months earlier, as did Brown's absences from his Parliament Hill duties.

The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, a committee of which Patrick Brown was a member, held thirteen meetings in July to debate Bill C-36, the Conservative's response to a Supreme Court ruling which declared that Canada's laws prohibiting activities surrounding prostitution were unconstitutional.

Although Brown attended the first four meetings that the justice committee held in July, he failed to attend the next nine meetings in July which followed.

When the justice committee resumed meeting in the fall session of Parliament, Brown failed to attend all eight meetings that the committee held until he was removed from the committee on November 20th.

Minutes of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations meeting on September 25th record that Brown did not attend the meeting. The committee meets about once a month and is the only committee of which Patrick Brown remains a member. Minutes of the committee's subsequent meetings have yet yo be published.

Brown's refusal to choose between his federal responsibility to represent Barrie full-time and his provincial political goals show that he is not fully committed, and therefore not fit, for either.

*UPDATE*

According to Hansard, as of March 13, 2015, Barrie MP Patrick Brown has attended 21 out of 42 recorded votes held in the House of Commons in 2015. That would seem to give Brown the 6th worst vote attendance record in the Conservative caucus in 2015:

1. Storseth: 1 vote attended in 2015.
2. Baird, Vellacott: 9 votes attended in 2015.
3. Hiebert: 18 votes attended in 2015.
4. Bruinooge: 19 votes attended in 2015.
5. Ritz: 20 votes attended in 2015.
6. Brown (Barrie): 21 votes attended in 2015.

A closer analysis reveals that the 21 votes Patrick Brown attended took place on just 4 days: January 28, February 3, February 4 and March 11. Recorded votes have been held in the House of Commons on 14 of the 25 days Parliament has been in session in 2015. If you rank Conservative MPs' vote attendance by the number of voting days they've attended, Brown's attendance record looks worse:

1. Storseth: 1 of 14 voting days attended in 2015.
2. Baird: 3 of 14 voting days attended in 2015.
3. Brown (Barrie), Vellacott: 4 of 14 voting days attended in 2015.

Conservative MPs Hiebert and Ritz attended votes on 9 out of 14 voting days and caucus colleague Bruinooge attended votes on 6 out of 14 voting days.

Applying the same analysis to vote attendance records for the fall of 2014 shows that Patrick Brown attended votes on just 13 out of 28 voting days. Among current Conservative MPs, other than two who were just elected in November 17th by-elections, only Lisa Raitt, who underwent surgery, voted on fewer days than Brown (10) in the fall of 2014.