SO OVER THE HILL
Before hightailing it out of Ottawa, departing MPs offer a few choice words of wisdom and wistfulness,
In all the stagecraft of a political career, few acts are as compelling as the exit — its timing, its reason, its grace.
Leave-takings can be abrupt or overdue, voluntary or forced. They can be triumphant, humble, rueful. The turn for the door can elicit applause or contempt, pathos or poetry.
The current federal campaign brings a season of deep change, with Canada’s House of Commons seeing the exodus of almost 60 MPs not seeking re-election to the 42nd Parliament.
If not much is more idealistic than the maiden speech of the newly elected, little is more bittersweet than an MP’s farewell. In leaving the Hill, most grow introspective, grateful, even a little awed.
“As a 14-year-old boy, I stood in the foyer entrance in this House and gazed at the magnificence of the chamber,” said Saskatchewan MP Ed Komarnicki, the Conservative from Souris—Moose Mountain. “I wondered what kind of person it would take to sit in this House.” Forty years later, he found out first-hand.
In explaining the “why” of political life, there are surprisingly frequent variations of it-just-sort-of-happened.
“My wife, Ann, and I were driving across the Prairies,” recalled outgoing British Columbia MP Alex Atamanenko. “It was at dinner in Medicine Hat when I mentioned to Ann that I was thinking of seeking the NDP nomination in the 2004 election. I remember her response: ‘I think you’re crazy. But I support you.’ ”
Overwhelmingly, departing MPs say they want to spend more time with their families. Some believe political service shouldn’t be a career, or have decided they’ve accomplished all they can. Others have grown weary of the toxic temper of the times, sniff foreboding electoral winds, eye pensions or opportunities elsewhere.
Departing are some parliamentary heavyweights. Some, like New Democrat Libby Davies, Liberal Irwin Cotler and Conservative James Ra- jotte, were widely respected tall poppies in a field that Canadians look on with anger and sorrow. Others are infamous or (fairly or not) obscure.
In valedictory addresses to the Commons, statements to constituents and media interviews, outgoing MPs recalled victories great and small, the improvements in Canadian lives they were able to achieve that made the relentless travel and long hours worthwhile.
Manitoba Conservative Joy Smith told the Star the highlight of her 11 years was the moment her bill to help stop human trafficking passed in the Commons, with several survivors watching from the public galleries. “I will never, in all my years, ever forget that.”
But the life has a dark side, and MPs saying farewell noted its costs. Liberal Frank Valeriote (Guelph) said his marriage didn’t survive his political career. “You’re away from home so much, it just sucked the life out of our marriage.”
He’s leaving politics, Valeriote told the Star, to commit himself to his two young children. Any potential second thoughts were erased when his 10- year-old son, Dominic, sent Valeriote a note saying: “You are the best dad because you quit your job for our lives.”
Too often, voters don’t appreciate the job’s demands, the lonely Ottawa nights, weekend work back in the constituency. “When an MP from the city asks how big my riding is, I say it’s 13 Santa Claus parades and 16 legions big,” Conservative MP Barry Devolin (Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock) told local media.
The wise know that no matter how triumphant their election night, there’s almost always a shelf life on the post, that waves ebb and flow, that the same voters who once hailed champions might send them packing as duds.
As well, most retiring MPs acknowledge that the parliamentary vineyard in which they’ve toiled is less esteemed than it once was, that power is too concentrated, the place grown too mindlessly partisan, that attitudes and behaviour must change if credibility with Canadians is to be regained.
As Conservative MP Rick Norlock (Northumberland—Quinte West) said in his farewell, “Why do we not have the kind of respect in this place that we should have?
“It begins with us. We cannot expect others to respect us, unless we respect each other.”
Overwhelmingly, departing MPs say they want to spend more time with their families