Tragedy in the Commons (27 page)

This is most likely because MPs know the public considers politics so distasteful that even long-time parliamentarians are reluctant to define themselves as a part of it. In this, the MPs agree with many Canadians: the way politics is practised is not particularly constructive or engaging. Even if the same MPs enjoy aspects of the political game—which is more likely, or else the games likely wouldn’t persist—they also know that they turn people off politics.

But these narratives ring hollow in the ears of a cynical public. By distancing themselves from their chosen endeavour, explaining away their interest in public life and suggesting, for
example, that their decisions to enter was a response to persuasion, the MPs set up a narrative that smacks of insincerity and perpetuates the problem.

Instead of claiming they didn’t want to run, why didn’t more say, “You know, I believe politics is a great way to make a contribution and I had my eyes open for a chance to participate?” This should not be a controversial statement, but from what the MPs told us, it would arouse suspicion about a candidate’s motives.

The problem is made worse by the tendency to campaign, not just against a political opponent but against the occupation of politics itself. Of course, at a time when Canada is facing serious public challenges, we need elected officials who are willing to embrace their jobs, and describe why politics matters. Until we do, we should not be surprised that so few young people consider the political arena a worthwhile place to invest time or an effective way to make a difference.

MPs also need to better understand and stand up for their roles. Less than five of the eighty MPs we interviewed, for example, saw their role at all in terms of the traditional Westminster definition, centred on the MPs’ task of holding the government to account. Instead, the MPs defined their jobs chiefly in terms of representing the views of constituents and those of the party, sometimes with specific reference to advancing legislation, although often in more vague, general terms. A subset of MPs emphasized solving constituents’ problems with federal departments, such as Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

MPs are devoting substantial time and office resources acting as customer service representatives for the federal
bureaucracy, thereby raising questions about bureaucratic accountability. But the impact of their efforts was more like plugging a single leak when the entire plumbing needs repair. If they are interested in processing immigration or veterans’ claims, they should join the civil service.

They also failed to take responsibility for the impetuous behaviour on display in the House of Commons. Some even made a point of saying they never acted like those politicians we see on TV. “I set as a goal when I was elected to never heckle in the House and I hated when people banged their hands on the desk. I never once banged my hand on a desk. Not once,” said Ken Epp, even after acknowledging that his own partisan behaviour had debased serious discussion on Canada’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan. But there was a hall-of-mirrors effect listening to MPs disparage the rhetoric they heard in the Green Chamber: they spoke about it as if watching from the visitors’ gallery, as if they hadn’t in fact participated or, through their silence, tacitly endorsed the behaviour.

We acknowledge that party leadership pushes the MPs to issue catcalls and criticisms to help them define the party’s position and frame their opponents in a bad light (though the impact of that rhetoric must be acknowledged—in what other workplace could any staff member so abuse a colleague or competitor?). “The party,” however, was rarely personified or described. At moments, the exit interviews felt like something out of
The Wizard of Oz
, with the MPs expressing awe and fear of an ostensibly great and powerful figure behind a curtain, unknown and unnamed. While loyal to their leader, they displayed remarkable aversion toward leadership and those holding the reins of power—elected or otherwise. Most MPs were imprecise about
who or what the term “party” described—as if not naming it dispensed them from dealing with it. Or perhaps it was a convenient way of ignoring the fact that those leaders were often people the MPs knew, likeable friends and colleagues. Or that the leaders might just be the MPs themselves.

Avoiding responsibility for the problems that plague life on the Hill was a constant in our interviews. MPs can blame the political parties. They can blame political staffers, their party leaders and the prime minister. They can blame the media and they can blame the culture of Ottawa. But at its root, any parliamentary problem exists because the Members of Parliament allow it to exist.

Should MPs so choose, changes could come very quickly, without legislative change or expensive consultation. Here’s a start on a bucket list for willing MPs: refuse party-drafted talking points in the House and in committees; take steps to reaffirm a place between constituents and Ottawa; clearly articulate a job description and how to prioritize its key responsibilities. As a start, these measures will help clarify each MP’s approach and enable citizens to know better what to expect from their elected representative.

There’s more. Help localize the decisions made in Ottawa in a minimally partisan way. For example, following each Speech from the Throne, MPs should make a point of outlining what it means for their constituency, bringing their own voice and perspective to what may appear to be an otherwise distant presentation. Now that so few local news outlets have reporters in Ottawa, it is all the more important for MPs to provide that context if national politics are to remain relevant to their constituents.

And lastly, in the next election, each incumbent MP—as well as every candidate—should identify two or three pro-democracy commitments they’ll make if elected. They could identify initiatives to raise voter turnout or advocate for greater transparency in their political party, starting with their local riding association. They could draft a code of conduct for themselves and their colleagues. They might even ask their constituents to suggest what changes they’d like to see that might lead them to hold MPs in greater esteem. Each of these steps, while small, can be easily accomplished and on a wide scale could achieve a powerful effect.

The MPs told us several stories about influencing legislation, such as policies aimed at renewing post-secondary education, when they banded together in small groups. Perhaps a similarly constituted group of MPs could work toward a movement for political renewal, and together slowly break through the tiring rhetoric that too often characterizes talk in Ottawa today. This could spark a much-needed discussion on the role of the MP in twenty-first-century democracy and how those roles should evolve so as to best serve the public.

There have been promising rumblings on Parliament Hill that suggest improvement is possible. We’ve seen backbench government MPs standing up to their leaders’ efforts to silence them, and one, Michael Chong, going so far as to propose legislation on the matter. We’ve seen political parties promise open nominations, and an opposition leader include in his campaign promises the pledge to provide more power to individual MPs. Although he is far from the first to do this, maybe this time it will stick. We have seen veteran MPs realizing that they can articulate points of view that differ from
those of their party, as they realize they don’t always have to toe the party line. We hope to see more of all of this in future.

And while the primary responsibility for responding to the former MPs’ appeal lies at the feet of MPs serving today, and those to come, they will ultimately act because we, the citizens, ask them to do so and support their efforts to make the changes our democracy so clearly needs.

The changes suggested in this book, in most cases, do not require complex legislative ammendments. Although amendments to Canada’s Elections Act or party constitutions may help move things along, in the meantime, let’s not overlook small, basic changes that can take place tomorrow if the actors involved choose to make them a priority.

WHAT FORMER MPS
told us about life in the House is not surprising. It’s what most Canadians think every day. What is surprising is that it came from the MPs’ mouths and with such consistency, regardless of their party or the region they represented. If we’re smart we’ll listen to what they said, even if we don’t enjoy hearing it.

The MPs’ successors have it in their power to demand changes and act differently, and the former MPs insisted that it is worthwhile to do so. As future crops of MPs enter the House of Commons, let’s hope they’ll act as Members of Parliament, and not just members of a party. And let’s hope they’ll resist the temptation to re-enact life on the kindergarten courtyard and come with ideas and initiatives of their own. Let’s hope they advocate for reform within their own party.

Let’s also hope that these new politicians will cease the toxic and counterproductive assertions that they aren’t really
politicians. If the newcomers really want to avoid being “typical politicians,” then they should behave differently. They should embrace the politicians’ role. They should take responsibility for the quality of politics and stop blaming an amorphous party. And when someone or something is to blame, they must call it out specifically, so it’s clear who or what Canadians should hold to account, and what should change.

So let’s finish with a look forward toward the careers of the 1,400 people who will be on the ballot for the upcoming federal election. We expect, at some point in future, that someone will conduct exit interviews with the MPs that rose from those hundreds of candidates. What will those interviews tell us? Whether those interviews happen in 2017, 2021 or 2025, we hope the political life of future MPs will have been something they planned and of which they were proud. We hope we hear people talk about what it was like being part of one of the best teams they’d ever been on. We hope we hear fewer tips on survival, and more stories of achievement. Perhaps more people will recall conversations like the one Paddy Torsney had with her mother, who, when Paddy decided to leave politics, said, “Now that you’re not running, you can have a life.” To which Paddy replied: “Mom, I had a life. It was a really good life.”

We hope, in short, that our future MPs confront the tragedy in our Commons, and become the leaders our country deserves. It’s in their hands, and it’s in our hands—as citizens—to ask them to do so. If we don’t, we are complicit in the tragedy.

NOTES

Unless otherwise noted, MP quotations are from Samara’s exit interviews. The list of the participating MPs is available at the end of this book
.

INTRODUCTION

The public opinion research conducted by Samara can be found in Samara’s publication entitled “Who’s the Boss? Canadians’ Views on Their Democracy,” December 3, 2012, and is available at:
www.samaracanada.com/what-we-do/current-research/who’s-the-boss-
.

The quote from Professor C.E.S. (Ned) Franks is from page 3 of
The Parliament of Canada
. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.

Garrett Hardin’s essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” was published in
Science
, New Series, vol. 162, no. 3859 (December 13, 1968), pages 1243–48.

CHAPTER ONE

The information on the pre-political backgrounds of elected officials was found in the article “There Was a Lawyer, an Engineer and a Politician …,” published in
The Economist
on April 16, 2009.

The information on the candidates in the 2008 election was found in William Cross and Lisa Young’s paper “Candidate Recruitment in Canadian Political Parties,” presented by William Cross at a Canadian Study of Parliament Group conference on November 19, 2010, and is available at:
http://www.studyparliament.ca/English/pdf/cross%20pathstoparliament%20slides.pdf
.

Data on Canadians’ trust of various professions was found in two articles by Frank Graves: “The Trust Poll: Yes to teachers, no to bloggers,” published on
iPolitics.ca
, May 13, 2013, and available at:
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/05/13/the-trust-poll-yes-to-teachers-no-to-bloggers
; and in “The Trust Deficit: What Does It Mean?,” published on the
Ekos Politics
blog, May 13, 2013, and available at:
http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2013/05/the-trust-deficit-what-does-it-mean/
; and in the article “Canada’s Most Trusted Professions – 2012 Trust Poll Results,” published in an undated article on the
Reader’s Digest
website, and available at:
http://www.readersdigest.ca/magazine/2013-trust-poll/canadas-most-trusted-professions-2012-trust-poll-results?id=3
.

The speech by Michael Ignatieff, “On Partisanship: Enemies
and Adversaries in Politics,” was based on a paper presented for the 2012–13 Stanford Presidential Lecture in the Humanities and Arts, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford, California, on October 15, 2012. More information on the speech can be found here:
http://library.stanford.edu/blogs/stanford-libraries-blog/michael-ignatieff-presidential-lecture-partisanship-enemies-and
.

The quote from Andrew Potter comes from his book
The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves
. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010, page 196.

CHAPTER TWO

The quote is from Preston Manning,
Think Big: Adventures in Life and Democracy
. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2003. In addition to the account Solberg provided in his interviews with Samara, a major source of information for this chapter’s opening anecdote is Preston Manning’s written eyewitness account, originally intended for publication in
Think Big
and cut in that book’s editing process. Manning graciously provided us with the unpublished account at our request.