SLOW MARCH OF DEMOCRACY
To a former city councillor, Parliament moves like ‘molasses.’ But he does wish question period lasted longer.
Scott Duvall did not run for a seat in Hamilton last year to get closer to former prime minister Stephen Harper.
As a candidate for the New Democrats in Hamilton Mountain, Duvall spent a lot of time telling voters why Harper and his government had to go.
When the election was over, Duvall became a member of Parliament on the opposition benches — and so did Harper. And one day over this last tumultuous year in politics, they both ended up at the same backdoor entrance on Parliament Hill.
Security guards around Harper told Duvall to step aside — an MP was coming through. Clearly, the guards didn’t know who they were dealing with. Politely, but firmly, Duvall refused to get out of the way.
“They asked me to move and I wouldn’t,” said Duvall. “I said I was an MP, too.”
People acquainted with the former steelworker, labour union president and municipal councillor in Hamilton would probably not be surprised. Duvall, 60, is known for standing his ground. He is also one of only a handful of rookie New Democrat MPs elected in Ontario last year, helping his party maintain its presence in Hamilton.
It’s been a bit of an adjustment, he admits, making the leap from municipal to federal politics.
“City hall is hands-on, where you can make phone calls and get things done,” he says.
“What I found in Ottawa is that things will go as slow as molasses.”
Well, with one exception — Duvall thinks that the daily question period session in the Commons goes by too quickly. In his nine years as a councillor, he was accustomed to meetings that lasted four hours. He thinks question period should run longer, too, so that MPs can have a real debate about the big issues of the day.
Duvall’s drive to become a federal MP is rooted in the same issue that has driven him throughout his career: the steel industry.
The son of a millwright at Stelco, Duvall is one of eight children. He went into the family business before becoming a local president with the United Steelworkers, and then into municipal and now federal politics.
He’s now vice-chair of the new “steel caucus” in the Commons, which includes MPs from all parties.
When asked where he’s making his biggest difference in Ottawa these days, he talks passionately and in some detail about the struggling steel industry and the continuing fallout of U.S. Steel’s bankruptcy protection process.
Duvall is arguing hard for a change in the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and for more transparency in how steelworkers and their pensions will be affected by the ongoing negotiations over the industry’s fate.
“People are devastated right now with what’s happening,” Duvall says.
He hasn’t totally shaken municipal politics out of his system. Duvall still pays regular calls on city hall and his old ward, keeping an ear to the ground in Hamilton.
Most of his staff work in the constituency office, which he shares with Monique Taylor, who represents roughly the same riding at Queen’s Park. Duvall says that arrangement is working out well — “one-stop shopping” for Hamilton residents who need something from their government, either provincial or federal.
The toughest issue for Duvall so far, beyond the still-simmering problems for steel, was the debate over assisted-dying legislation, which he supported even though he would have liked to see a stronger bill, in terms of giving people the right to end their lives.
“That was a very, very difficult situation because everybody has their own personal feelings,” he says.
The biggest adjustment in his new life as an MP? He says it’s the travel, the five-hour drive he does weekly, and all the time away from his wife, his three grown daughters and two grandchildren.
“You miss the home cooking, I’ll tell you. I’ve been spoiled all my life,” he laughs. “I now have to iron my own clothes, wash my own dishes and cook my own food. It’s really, really different.”
Working on Parliament Hill can be a heady experience, from the swearing-in ceremony to walking through corridors and finding yourself strolling beside Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
But Duvall looks at all of it through a grounded, regular-guy-from-Hamilton perspective, not able to help noticing, for instance, that all the security around visiting dignitaries “must cost a lot.”
He doesn’t seem too caught up in partisan divisions, either, saying that though he has differences of opinion with Trudeau, “actually he’s not a bad guy, from what I know of him.”
But that might be just because no one has ever asked him — so far — to get out of Trudeau’s way.
“I give him high regard because he’s certainly different from our last one,” says Duvall. House-trained is a summer series on new Ontario MPs. sdelacourt@bell.net