Danny Williams is also the tallest MHA ever

In wrapping up the proceedings of the Bow-Wow Parliament for the summer on the 24th, Dear Leader made some dubious claims:

Having said all of that, Mr. Speaker, with regard to the last session, as I understand from the Government House Leader, it equals the record longest session of the House, so any criticism the hon. members opposite have about us not sitting around here long enough, we can stay for another couple of months, if you want to.

...

I want to thank my government. I want to thank the Government House Leader particularly, for thirty or thirty-one pieces of legislation this time around. The longest session of the House. I think the session extended over twelve weeks. It does not add up to twelve weeks but it did extend over a period of twelve weeks, if we count the partial weeks. That is a long haul.

They were dutifully reported by at least one broadcast media outlet:

Legislature Closes

The provincial legislature has wrapped up one of the longest sittings in the province's history - 43 days. The sitting covered all or part of 12 weeks. It featured over 30 pieces of legislation including some controversial bills such as changes to the Highway Traffic Act and drunk driving laws, stronger protection for animals, and a beefed-up human rights package. One of the key moments came when Liberal Leader Yvonne Jones reluctantly apologized after being labeled by the Speaker as the instigator of House of Assembly banter. Thursday afternoon, Lieutenant Governor John Crosbie cleared the way for everyone to go home by giving Royal Assent to all the bills.

(See if you can spot the other curiosities in that report.)

Fortunately, Dave Bartlett of the Quebec Daily Newspaper is not nearly as unquestioning and uncritical a thinker, reporting on Monday:

An analysis of the numbers from the year 2000 onward — and based on the number of days as posted on the House’s website — shows on average the House has sat for 33 days in the spring and 12 days in the fall over that period.

The average number of days the House sat in a calendar year between 2000 and 2009 works out to be 43 days.

But if you go back to the first two years of the online archive, 1991 and 1992, you find the House used to sit for considerably longer.

In 1991, the spring session last for 60 days and the fall session was 29 for a total of 89 sitting days. The following year the spring session was 54 days and the fall sitting 36 for a total of 90 days — more than double the average sitting over the last decade.

This chart shows the number of House sitting days between January 1st and the summer recess for as far back as there is on-line Hansard. The great "record" is only a record if you disregard everything that ever happened in the years B.D. (Years in which elections were held in the late winter or spring are shown in pale colours.) You'd think by now His Awesomeness would have learned the risks associated with taking advice from mere cabinet mortals,