Thunder Bay MPs plan to help rookie members

Bruce Hyer said he was a deer caught in the headlights when he was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Thunder Bay-Superior North in 2008.

He said he wished there had been someone to show him the ropes at Parliament Hill, so it was an easy decision for him to volunteer to mentor a couple of the rookie NDP MPs elected last Monday.

The NDP gained 65 new seats this election, with 57 of those going to first-time MPs in Quebec. To give the newcomers a crash course in the House of Commons, the party is offering up their more experienced members as mentors.

“I’m going to take a couple of them under my wing and do what I wish somebody had done for me when I was new there, which is teach them how the system works, teach them the basics and be there to help them if needed,” Hyer said.

While he was briefly overwhelmed when he first took the Thunder Bay-Superior North seat, Hyer said he had a lot of life experience to draw on and was not as young as some of the new Quebec members.

“I can only imagine what it would be like for any new MP, but especially for the young ones without lots of work experience in their lives,” Hyer said.

Fellow NDP MP John Rafferty (Thunder Bay-Rainy River) said while he doesn’t know who he’ll be mentoring, he thinks it’ll be fun and that the newcomers won’t need much help.

“I think the only mentoring that I can probably give to most of the new MPs is how to get around Parliament Hill, how to get around Ottawa, how to make best use of their time and what they need to make sure they get done,” he said.

Rafferty assumes the MPs will be paired up based on backgrounds and similar interests and said the mentoring system should be up and running when Parliament resumes on May 30 with the throne speech.

“When you have a whole new crop of MPs, it takes some time to get started,” he said. “As an incumbent, it’s easier for me because I just continue doing what I’ve always been doing. I do know the trials and tribulations a new MP has so there has to be enough time for them to get settled.”