Tragedy in the Commons (3 page)

As origin stories go, the tale spun by our federal politicians is prototypically Canadian, with its disregard for ambition and its celebration of the underdog. Does it matter that we think these stories were somewhat contrived? We don’t think so. Whether it’s Adam and Eve and the serpent, or Zeus battling the titan Cronus, creation myths do tend to say something about the people who tell them. So what does the creation myth of the Canadian politician say about the people who lead this country?

THE FORMER MPS
we interviewed frequently described their initial attitude toward politics as
stronger
than simple reluctance. Many portrayed themselves as having to be almost dragged, kicking and screaming, into the job. It was remarkable: before we learned
anything
else about them, these MPs wanted to make sure we grasped just how resistant they had been to entering politics. Furthermore, in discussing their lives before, during and after their political careers, they tended to portray themselves as having never fully embraced the job.

Take former MP for Fraser Valley West, Randy White. Before entering politics in the early ’90s he was co-CEO and secretary-treasurer of his local school board in Abbotsford, a town in southern British Columbia. An accountant by
profession, he was also the president of the Abbotsford Rotary Club. White was in the process of negotiating a new labour contract with striking teachers when the teachers’ lead negotiator slid a book across the table toward him. “You sound like these guys,” the negotiator said. It was the Reform Party’s “Blue Book.” “I
do
sound like these guys,” thought White as he read it, He joined the party and became an organizer for his riding.

But who would be Reform’s Fraser Valley West candidate in the next federal election? “We were all making six figures,” White recalls. “[We] were lawyers, accountants and CEOs. Nobody really wanted to do it.” He and his fellow Abbotsford Reformers developed a strategy: they would put forward a nominee and then attend the nomination meeting. Through their nominee, they’d try to exert some influence on the process—to make sure that their views were being discussed during the nomination race. At a meeting in a local law firm, White’s friends talked him into running as the nominee the group would put forward. “You’re the obvious choice,” they said. “I don’t know about this one,” he replied.

White was already a busy man. “I had one hundred million dollars in capital going into building schools. We were the fastest-growing district in Canada.” He went home and told his wife that his associates wanted him to run for the nomination, to try to become the Reform candidate. The idea was that a high-quality candidate like White would encourage other, similarly high-quality candidates to come forward to contest the Reform ticket.

“You’re not getting elected, are you?” his wife asked. “Oh no,” he tried to reassure her. But then his candidacy gained momentum. Few other viable candidates stepped forward,
and donations were pouring in. “We’ve got cash galore here,” White’s associates said. “People are saying you’re the right person for the job.”

Even as the nomination meeting approached, White clung to the hope that someone else would beat him. “No, Randy’s not going to win this,” he told his associates. “Randy’s going in to get the best person to win this. Remember, guys.”

At the nomination meeting, White “blew out” about a half-dozen other contenders. He’d won the Reform ticket, and he grasped for the first time that he could win the election—he could become an MP. “Wait a minute,” he said to himself. “I’m leaving my job if I win this? How much does an MP make anyway?” He wasn’t thrilled to hear that, at the time, an MP only made $65,000. And when he told his wife it was looking as though he might win the race, news of the much smaller salary “went over like a lead balloon.”

“Why are we going downhill like this?” his wife asked. But as the 1993 federal election approached, White realized the momentum was on his side. “We already knew we had it,” he recalled. “We knew by the amount of money, and people, and votes.” White ended up winning by 12,000 votes—almost, to hear him tell it, against his will.

ASK PEOPLE WHO WORK
at demanding, stressful occupations—the emergency room doctors, high-school principals or Bay Street CEOs—and many will say they could never do anything else. Doing what they do was a lifelong goal. Whether the plan to get there was developed in high school, university or even later, these accomplished achievers had a plan: one they stuck to, one they scrimped and sacrificed to carry out, one that
helped them rise to the important position that represented the pinnacle of their ambitions.

Not the MPs we interviewed.

“I was approached by someone heading up the search. They said, ‘We are looking for someone to run for the nomination for Member of Parliament. We think we can win the seat,’ ” recalled Catherine Bell, a former cook. “I said, ‘Oh, let me think, who could we get?’ and he said, ‘No, I mean you.’ I hadn’t really thought about it.” She went on to win the 2006 election for the NDP in Vancouver Island North.

Jean Augustine, a high-profile community leader in the west end of Toronto who had immigrated to Canada from Grenada, was first approached to run by Toronto business executive and Conservative organizer John Tory. Augustine paraphrased his pitch: “Brian Mulroney is stepping down and Kim Campbell wants to go for it.… She is looking for some candidates and she is looking for women. He just thought I would be great.” Augustine continued, “I said no, no, no, no, no. I don’t see myself as running for politics.” She saw herself providing input on policy, but not being the figure in the spotlight. She also declined the NDP when they approached her. And, finally, the Liberals came. “I had breakfast with them,” she recalled. “Then I had lunch, then I had breakfast, then I had lunch, then I had dinner.” And at some point during all that cultivating, Augustine figured, what did she have to lose? She went on to spend twelve years as an MP, from 1993 to 2005.

Ken Epp, a Reform-turned-Conservative MP from Alberta, had a similar story: “One of my friends, who was on the board of the constituency association and knew me personally, came to my door and said, ‘We want you to run
as our candidate.’ ” Epp laughed him off. “You’ve got to be kidding! That’s not really in the cards.” But the friend kept appearing at Epp’s door, every three or four days, asking whether he would run as the Reform candidate. Finally, Epp became intrigued enough to arrange a meeting with Deborah Grey, the first-ever elected Reform MP, up in Edmonton. “If people of principle don’t become involved in the political process,” Grey told him, “then we are destined to be governed by those who have no principles.” Finally, Epp gave in. He decided to pursue political office.

The point is, Epp
had
to give in. Politics wasn’t a career he’d ever have considered on his own.

SO WHO WERE THESE
apparently reluctant politicians? The MPs we interviewed arrived in federal politics typically in their mid-to-late forties, having raised a family and built a career, usually far from Ottawa. Apart from the common “reluctant outsider” theme, their stories featured a remarkable diversity. Parliamentarians’ backgrounds, family histories, cultures, levels of education and pre-political careers were far more varied and less predictable than we’d assumed. Some had been political party staffers but few were the consummate political insiders we had expected. They had not grown up in political dynasties; most had university degrees but they hadn’t all studied political science or law, and few had long-standing political party involvement. “Politics wasn’t something that anybody in my family actively participated in.… It just seemed what other people do,” said John Cummins, the Conservative MP for Delta–Richmond East in B.C.

Before running for office, the MPs pursued a wide range of jobs, professions and community interests. More than a quarter were involved in education: as teachers, coaches, principals or academics. An even larger number were active in business, working as proprietors, managers, salespeople and senior executives. Others came from such professions as journalism, accounting, engineering, nursing, natural resources, farming and social work. Ten percent had some military experience, and many more worked in the public sector in a variety of roles—a civil-service manager, a police officer, an air traffic controller. Several ran non-profit organizations; others were involved in unions; two were clergymen. One was a grand chief. Their careers reflected the diversity of the country and the economy, although most enjoyed a middle-class lifestyle. Many had done a volunteer gig with a local political party association, maybe a stint as a municipal or provincial elected official or as an aide to a politician. They’d perhaps talked politics around the family table, but few had spent their young adulthoods waving a political party flag.

In our cohort of former MPs, there were nevertheless a few high-profile exceptions who had come from families that prioritized politics. We’ve already mentioned Liberal MP and former prime minister Paul Martin, who is the son of the Liberal MP and minister of finance. Former NDP leader Alexa McDonough’s father, Lloyd Shaw, while never elected, was the first national research director of the NDP’s precursor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), and also the provincial secretary of the CCF’s Nova Scotia wing. People like Tommy Douglas, a Saskatchewan premier, MP and first leader of the federal NDP, or M.J. Coldwell and Stanley
Knowles, both long-time MPs and senior statesmen in the party, were frequent visitors to the McDonough home. When they visited, they gathered around the family breakfast table or beside the fireplace debating any list of issues, local to international. McDonough knew life no other way. But what had inspired the rest to get into politics?

A few cited their upbringing—parents who talked politics at home or positions on student councils. Inky Mark, who represented the rural Manitoba riding surrounding Dauphin from 1997 until 2010, grew up on politics in an unconventional setting: waiting tables in his parents’ Chinese restaurant in the 1950s and ’60s. By the time he was nine, he was working attentively in the family business. “I grew up in the public,” he said. “I heard lots of commentary about everything.”

We’ve shared Bloc MP Jean-Yves Roy’s story about his chance meeting with Premier Daniel Johnson Sr. Several other MPs cited pivotal points when their lives intersected with political leaders. The NDP’s Bill Siksay recalled being a kid caught up in Trudeaumania in the 1960s. He and some school friends had gone to check out a rally in his home town of Oshawa. Siksay ended up shaking Trudeau’s hand at the rally and became hooked on politics. “I was a little groupie at that time and very excited about all of that,” he said. “It was a very interesting and a very exciting time.” Remarkably, his high school, R.S. McLaughlin, had an elaborate parliamentary system of student government. While most other schools had councils and presidents, McLaughlin had a House of Commons and a Senate. Each class sent its representative, their MP, to the House of Commons, and the Senate was appointed by the governor general, who was the principal. A staff advisor served
as speaker. The student MPs ran in a wider election. If you won, you sat in Cabinet; if you lost, you were in opposition. Siksay was an MP for grade nine and eventually became the school prime minister.

WHEN CALLED TO SERVE
in politics, our MPs told us, their reasons for ultimately saying yes were as varied as their lives and careers. Some felt drawn to politics out of a duty to serve a particular community. Take Loyola Hearn. In the late ’90s, Hearn was working in Newfoundland for the provincial Progressive Conservatives. A teacher by profession, Hearn had served in the provincial legislature for the PCs from 1982 to 1993, including a stint as the minister of education from 1985 to 1989. But as the ’90s were coming to a close, the PCs were in rough shape in Newfoundland. No money, no organization—and the polls suggested they’d be wiped out in the next election. Hearn helped assemble a team that encouraged a successful business executive, Danny Williams, to lead the party. Williams asked Hearn to stay on to help get the party back on a solid footing. “That threw me back into the active political scene,” he said. “It wasn’t that I was craving to get back [into public life] at all. It was more or less a duty, an obligation, a favour.”

During that time, the Progressive Conservative MP in Hearn’s riding resigned his seat, and the local guys urged Hearn to run. As prominent a political figure as Hearn was, even he was reluctant to pursue a position in Parliament. “They all said, ‘Look. You’re the ideal candidate. You’re well known, and you have a good record. We are all here to help.’ ”

During those years, the Progressive Conservatives were also in rough shape at the federal level, still smarting from the
lingering effects of the 1993 election, which had left them with only two seats. In 1998 former prime minister Joe Clark had come out of political retirement to hold things together, even though he didn’t have a seat himself. In such a climate, Hearn figured a PC win in the riding would be tough. “I more or less said, ‘Look. For the sake of the party, I’ll run and put on a good campaign, but we’ll have to work hard if we’re going to win.’ And we did.”

Others saw pursuing public office as a way to learn and grow as professionals and as citizens. Sue Barnes had been a lawyer with her own law practice in London, Ontario, for fifteen years, and was ready for a change. “I needed a bigger challenge [and] was concerned if you got bored you could become negligent,” she said. Barnes had considered the judiciary, but a mentor encouraged her toward politics. An element of obligation did creep into her decision, though. “[Being an immigrant], it was my payback to Canada,” she said.

The majority of our interviewees, however, had taken a look at politics and found it wanting. They saw a system that didn’t reflect them or what they viewed as important. Some believed the political system was moving in the wrong direction: that the link between government and citizens was broken, and prime ministers, red or blue, acted too frequently beyond accountability. In some cases, they’d grown to resent the leadership style of a particular prime minister and wished for something better. “I was pissed off,” said Conservative MP Jay Hill. “I think that is probably what motivates quite a few people.” And Chuck Strahl, first elected as a member of the Reform Party in 1993, reported: “There was a lot of anger in the West … especially toward the federal [Progressive]
Conservatives, … We felt let down. We felt that what we had tasked them to do in Ottawa, they had not done.”