Dads on the Hill: Male MPs with kids work hard to mix fatherhood with politics
OTTAWA — Liberal MP Peter Schiefke checks his schedule carefully each week, as one would expect from anyone with a busy job, asking himself one question in particular.
Will the timing of a vote in the House of Commons let him make the hour-and-a-half drive to his riding of Vaudreuil-Soulanges, Que. in time to give his two-year-old son Anderson a bath and then put him in bed?
Or, will it mean that he gets home too late for that, but can maybe wake up early, enjoy a couple of hours with his wife, Paula Ruttle and newborn daughter, Noelle, before dropping Anderson off at daycare and heading back to the House of Commons?
“You don’t want to miss the first walk and the first words and the first everything,” said Schiefke, parliamentary secretary for youth to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.