Madam Speaker, to the point about Calvin and Hobbes, I have been reading Calvin and Hobbes for my entire life. Since I got elected, I probably have not spent any time reading it. However, that is another point.
To the point about family friendly, my riding is one-sixth the size of the province of Alberta. When I am home in my riding, I am not even at my own home. I am typically 500 kilometres to 600 kilometres away. One extra day does not really give me the time to spend in my riding. I need a week in order to be in my riding. Are we were going to chop Fridays off and add on an extra week somewhere in the calendar year? We are here for 26 weeks out of the year. That is half the year. I spend the rest of the time on the road in my riding.
I know that the term “family friendly” is used when talking about taking Fridays away. Making Parliament more family friendly has often been used to describe why we need to get rid of Fridays. I feel that is being targeted towards a guy like me who has a young family. I spend a significant amount of time organizing my schedule so that I do spend time with my family.
Having Fridays off will probably be more detrimental to spending time with my family, rather than if we are here for entire weeks and then having entire weeks off to be back in our ridings. That is a much better use of my time.