Mr. Chair, there is nobody in this House who can put greater pressure on us to be better and serve our constituents better than me. I'm always challenging our team, saying that we have to be able to maximize things a little bit better, whatever we're doing. The comments I'm getting, however, are that they've never seen their member of Parliament more and have never heard from their member of Parliament more. That's not to say anything negative about my predecessor, who was here for 22 years and who, I would say, represented our region very well.
It is to say, though, that there are various ways of doing things without actually impacting others. I use video messaging to wish constituents happy birthday. If I can't attend an event, I send greetings via video. I make sure that we reach out, as I said, Monday to Friday, if I'm able to. I call constituents after the House rises. I do things a little bit differently. I schedule conference calls earlier in the morning for those who are beyond eastern standard time. I make sure that we're maximizing our time in the House or in our office.
We were represented for a long time by a great member of Parliament, and he did some incredible things for our region. We are not doing things better per se; we're doing things differently.
The whole point of this is that it's incumbent upon all of us, I think, to find ways in which we can be more effective in our own offices. We can talk about best practices among ourselves: “How's this working out for you?” I love our committee travel and the stuff that we do, because we actually get the chance, non-adversarially.... When you're travelling with somebody, you truly get to know the person.
We were just on a 15- or 17-hour flight. Far be it from me to sneak into the bathroom as soon as we board and get into my Lulus and my t-shirt, that's what I travel in, on long distances—