Campaigning with cancer
Weakened Liberal battles for re-election in Scarborough
Sometime near the end of June, after six months of painful and exhausting radiation and chemotherapy for cancer, Liberal MP Arnold Chan sat down with his doctor to talk about the future.
The good news: Chan didn’t need more treatment. But there was a chance, the doctor warned, that he might need surgery in September to remove some lymph nodes. If so, Chan was told, the recovery time would be about a month. In other words, most of the election campaign.
“I asked him if I could delay it,” Chan recalls, sitting in a Tim Hortons in his Toronto-area riding of Scarborough-Agincourt last week. “The doctor just kind of said: ‘It’s your life.’ When I asked him what’s the alternative, he said: ‘Death.’ ”
Chan didn’t need surgery. Instead, he’s out on the campaign trail, knocking on doors, participating in debates and doing everything he can to get re-elected as the area’s MP. And while his battle with cancer has taken a toll, and in some ways put him at a disadvantage with his competitors, he says he can’t imagine doing anything else.
“I’ve been in politics a long time. I’m really enjoying what I do,” he says. “And I’m not going to let cancer stop me from doing this.”
Chan looks pretty good for someone who had a feeding tube removed only a few weeks ago. Still, the residual effects of his treatment are evident. His body is rail-thin after losing 25 pounds. His black hair is laced with grey. There are radiation burns on his shoulder. He has lost some feeling in his fingers and toes.
Chan was first elected to the House of Commons in a byelection in June 2014. A lawyer and former adviser to Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, he succeeded longtime MP and current Toronto city councillor Jim Karygiannis to hold the seat for the Liberals.
“I’m not as strong as I was in the byelection,” he admits. “In the byelection, I was running doorto-door and could do three polls a day. Now I have to pick and choose my battles.”
Chan had barely arrived on Parliament Hill following the summer break in September 2014 when he discovered a lump near his collarbone. At first, he didn’t think anything of it. And he had other things to worry about — his parents had just gotten into a serious car crash in Newfoundland, which almost killed his 75-year-old father.
It was Chan’s wife who made an appointment with the Commons’ health clinic. A battery of tests followed, and in early December, less than six months after being elected, the diagnosis confirmed he had nasopharyngeal carcinoma. A rare type of cancer, it was centred in his sinuses and the lymph nodes in his shoulder.
Chan credits his wife, Jean Yip, with saving his life as well as taking on much of the burden during this election campaign. That includes organizing and attending events, knocking on doors and anything else that needs to be done.
“She’s taken over,” he says. “She’s led the way.”
Chan told Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau about his diagnosis a few days later. “I’m a party man first,” he says. “I told him if we thought this seat was in play, I would step down. He told me: ‘Just beat this thing.’ ” Fellow MPs and constituents were also supportive when he announced he was taking time off for treatment.
Weeks of radiation and chemo followed. Just before another round of chemo in late April, Chan returned to Ottawa for a couple of days. He was warmly welcomed by MPs from all parties. “I really wanted to get back at it,” he says. “But the chemo afterward hit me hard.”
Driving through ScarboroughAgincourt, one can’t help notice that campaign signs. The majority belong to Conservative candidate Bin Chang. She’s an associate professor of finance at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
Karygiannis held ScarboroughAgincourt from the moment the riding was created in 1988 until he stepped down in April 2014. No one knew if Chan would be able to hold onto it for the Liberals during the subsequent byelection. He ended up with more than twice as many votes as the then-Conservative candidate, Trevor Ellis.
Chan has a saying: “Signs don’t vote.” But he admits that Chang represents a tougher challenge than Ellis. And while the cancer has slowed Chan down, Chang has been going full-bore.
“She’s been very, very aggressive,” Chan says. “If I knew my opponent was like me, I’d do the same thing, which is outwork them.”
As a result, victory for Chan is no sure thing. The same holds true for his cancer; doctors will continue to monitor him for the next five years. It’s only after that point, if there is no resurgence, that he will be declared cancer-free. For now, he’s going to keep knocking on doors and fighting to get healthy.
“The feeling in my fingers and toes is slowly coming back,” he says. “And I can still play piano.”