HOUSE HEAVYWEIGHTS WHO ARE HANGING UP THEIR GLOVES
John Baird: Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet workhorse and occasional partisan pit bull — he had a cat named Thatcher — surprised the world of Parliament Hill by resigning from cabinet in February. Just 45, he had been in elected politics in suburban Ottawa for 20 years, starting at the Ontario legislature under former premier Mike Harris in 1995, and moved quickly into a portfolio of lucrative private sector posts. “I was perhaps just a little naive,” Baird told the Commons in recalling his youthful self. “Driven by ideology, defined by partisanship at age 25.”
Dean Del Mastro: The member for Peterborough, once parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, was convicted of breaching the Elections Canada Act by overspending, then attempting to cover up the violation. The 45-year-old social conservative was first elected in 2006, sat briefly as an Independent after leaving the Conservative caucus upon being charged, then resigned his seat in November 2014 after his conviction.
Patrick Brown: The 37-year-old MP from Barrie, first elected in 2006, was a hockey-loving non-entity in Ottawa who drew early ridicule for his decision to seek the Ontario PC leadership. It was Brown, however, who laughed last, winning that job in May and then resigning his federal seat. Brown has, as backers, an impressive slate of active and former NHLers, which helps draw publicity, and communities of new Canadians, which might well make him a threat to Ontario’s governing Liberals.
Eve Adams: Adams was an apparently fervent Tory who lost a Conservative nomination bid after her riding of Mississauga—Brampton South was eliminated in a redistribution. She fell in love with one of Harper’s key aides, who lost his job as party president for favouritism toward her. She then crossed the floor to join the Liberals, outraging local Grits before handily losing that party’s nomination as a parachute candidate in midtown Toronto. Adams, 41, who was elected to the Commons in 2011, will be missed by reporters, if not necessarily by her former leaders.
Peter MacKay: The former PC leader who merged that party with Harper’s Canadian Alliance to establish the new Conservative Party of Canada left Parliament with Harper hailing him as a history-maker. MacKay, an MP since 1997, famously betrayed a leadership rival to cut that deal. He was later himself jilted by former MP Belinda Stronach. Now, nearing 50, he heads back to Nova Scotia to his young family and wife, Nazanin Afshin-Jam, “who I met here as a member of Parliament,” he notes. “Were it not for politics, I would not have met the love of my life.”