Bringing Ourselves Back

How does one maintain his or her own inner identity in the turmoil and power playing that come part and parcel with life in Ottawa?  It’s a question that doesn’t normally come to mind but the recent attention of this issue raised by the recent Maclean’s article has prompted numerous responses from other members of parliament confessing to struggling with such realities.

Some expressed great love for their own spouses and families and yet felt the sharing of such sentiments seemed out of place in parliamentary circles.  A couple of others voiced the desire to actually speak out about the lack of decency in the present House activities but worried of the fallout from their own party leadership.

What’s good about this is that well-meaning politicians are now at least expressing a collective desire to not just bring decency back into parliament but to also bring themselves back as well.  They came into these hallowed walls over the years, brim full of ideals for public service, but have lost some of the initiative over time.  The very fact that they have voiced such things brings on the possibility that some kind of change could in fact take place.

I have had to explain that I am more than the simple sum of all the elements of my background.  Sure I’m a Liberal, and of course I am a man of a reserved religious faith.  My family is terrific and the social causes I’m involved in give meaning to who I am.  But the important qualities I bring to political life I have largely acquired and developed on my own.  I possessed those qualities, acquired after years of hard work and at times failure, when I first came into parliament.  They are in my possession and I refuse to sell them off if it means I can get noticed by my party or even by parliament as a whole.

I have traveled a lot and my familiarity with tragedy has produced in me both a desire to enjoy this world but to improve it at the same time.  At times these two realities come into conflict.  This is especially true in political life.  I want to be part of a team, even be noticed for the contribution I can make.  I would enjoy it.  Yet the struggles I have witnessed have taught me that my life doesn’t count for much if I can’t stay consistent to my own beliefs.

Whenever that moment comes where I know that by behaving in a certain way that might be uncivil or uncaring I could achieve a certain political end, I am forced, by the sheer suffering that others endure around the world, to opt for being who I really am - their lives are more important than role playing.  It’s a hard trade-off, yet in my struggling through it I have discovered other parliamentarians who have expressed similar inner conflicts.

This particular parliamentary session could reach for a higher level and perhaps find a certain modicum of success only when we permit that inner struggle within to find outward expression, even if it results in a certain political loss.  In the end it’s a test of our political legitimacy and authenticity, and the experience of the last week has taught me that there are many in this place who serve for all the best reasons.  However, it’s time for us to speak up.  In failing to do so, we not only fail ourselves but all those whose witnessed struggle taught us to be caring individuals in the first place.  It’s time we showed up.

 

How It Could Work

This week I observed an interesting example of how this parliament could work if we just actually got around to the business of cooperating in the national interest - or in this case, the interest of women.

Upon first being elected over a year ago, I requested to get on the all-parliamentary committee on the Status of Women and it’s a decision I’ve never regretted.  We’ve covered interests as wide ranging as aboriginal poverty, female trafficking, domestic violence and the sad plight of many senior women.  The aspect that has captured my imagination the most, however, has been what’s called “Gender Budgeting.” Sounds boring but it isn’t.

Gender Budgeting Analysis, or GBA, is all about how governments have frequently announced finance legislation, often in annual budgets, and how that legislation has frequently failed women. Repeatedly throughout this past year we have learned from independent economists of how initiatives such as pension splitting, Old Age Security, and tax savings programs have ultimately benefitted men over women.  It’s too detailed to get into here, but let’s just say that case is compelling.

Yesterday, the entire committee received training on how to do a gender budget analysis and it was empowering. Two particular financial initiatives were selected from the 2007 federal budget and examined for their impacts on women.  Our committee - 12 members from all parties - was broken into two groups to facilitate the analysis. For the first time, instead of sitting on opposite sides of the room, party members worked together, under trained facilitators, to dig into legislation and examine its impact on Canadian women. It was a fascinating spectacle and it captivated me.

In both cases, the groups were able to see for themselves how broad budget measures can actually have a debilitating impact on women on a large scale.  The wage gap is now widening again between men and women for instance, especially among post-graduate women.  How do you explain that? The only way is for committee members like ours to examine the outcomes of financial legislation, tracing it back to where mistakes or oversights were made.

What was even better was the manner in which all committee members came to a quiet consensus that, at least in the cases of these two initiatives, we had failed to take into account the lack of benefit to women. And we all agreed!  The Conservatives could have fought against it because they’re the government at the moment. Or the other members could have slammed the Liberals for not doing more when they were in government. But instead there was this general awakening that we had all failed and that remedies would have to be found.

This is exactly a model of how this parliament could get its act together if we put workable solutions ahead of partisan advantage. Is it likely to happen? Probably not, but the Status of Women committee showed the possibilities and I’m deeply appreciative to all members of that committee because of how they stepped back from the politics of things and viewed policy through the lens of its impact on the daily lives of Canadians. Why can’t parliament be like that?

The Uncomfortable Ritual of Reading About Yourself

We can’t help it and we all do it.  As politicians we all follow our own press in the hopes that those who voted for us know that we are, in fact, active in our public lives and following through on our commitments. Other than public meetings or individual correspondence with constituents, the best way to get the word out is through the media.  We’ve all had our share of it, and at times we might not like the outcome, but we know it’s a necessity in present times.

There are those moments, however, when an article or photo appears that digs below your public persona and takes a more intimate look.  That happened this week when Maclean’s magazine published a two-page spread on my struggles in Parliament.  I knew it was coming but wasn’t quite prepared for the intimacy of it. But the writer did a very credible job of not only explaining my difficulties but also my hopes as a politician.

Politics is something of a jungle where you are torn between doing the right thing and yet somehow staying in office and being relevant in your political party. More than that, you are torn between the local interest and the national interest, between the private good of the politician and the general good.  I believe the really good politicians have something else on their minds in Ottawa besides just thinking about the next election.  It takes a certain amount of personal courage though because our public self has to be faithful to our private self.  Political courage only works if you can keep your private self alive in a very public arena.

Those seeking the public limelight for the sake of re-election get the queasy feeling likened to a butterfly that is pinned under glass, with no sense of habitat, genealogy or connection to nature.  The tragedy of modern politics is that we suffer so much to give such disconnected and lukewarm meaning to public office.

Overall the media has been kind to me in my life as a public servant over the last 30 years, but when the stories dig personally - and they should - it can be a tad embarrassing.  At least that’s true in my case. And yet, in truth, I couldn’t have it any other way.  My political life and private life must meld together lest I lose my way in Ottawa.  Missing my wife is something I must express or else I soon learn not to mention her and eventually live in private despair.  Bragging about my seven children and one grandchild is important (though I’m sure boring at times to my colleagues), yet it must be done because I have partly found my way in life because of them. Publicly struggling over my political life permits an intimate look for my constituents of how, in my desire to serve them, sacrifices have been made that at times are painful. Permitting the media to witness my personal disappointment at partisanship gone awry gives the citizen hope that what they are seeing is the same thing I am and that their instincts on this are correct, thereby keeping Parliament more accountable.

And so I read through the Maclean’s piece with an abiding sense of embarrassment at being so vain as to quickly open the article to see what it said. Because it was so honest, I felt humbled and elevated in the same moment.  Why?  Because only by digging into my personal life; only by opening myself up to a journalist; only by risking the revelation of my flaws and strengths, did the story actually get me … and get me right. It spoke of my tears and my hopes, my frustrations and flushed sense of pride at others in parliament who have found success.  Yet above all it did me the great honor of revealing that I cannot separate my private and intimate life of family and inner struggle, because I might lose my way as a public servant and become that butterfly under a glass. I remain deeply grateful to the journalist for being honest about me. More stories like this about politicians would personalize political life and make us more human again.

A final note - The title of the article - “The Last Decent Man in Ottawa” - jumped off the page at me and brought the greatest discomfort.  The reason?  Because it’s not true.  I have been privileged enough to work with numerous MPs and ministers from all parties and I find them all to be faithfully “decent” and concerned with the doing the right thing. I write this as sincerely as I can because I work with these individuals every day and in many ways I am impressed.  The fact that I was more open than others about my inner struggles and very blessed personal life, doesn’t make me more decent - just more open, that’s all.

Living In A Time of Diminishing Returns

Listening to all the arguments in Parliament leaves one with the impression that we still live in a time of no limitations.  We continue to act as though there are plenty of resources to go around and I’m troubled that a true sense of urgency hasn’t yet gripped all parties.

We have consumed for so long that we feel invincible in a way.  As perhaps the greatest generation of consumers, we follow a kind of collective delusion that is quickly leading us into a place of few options. Like our friends south of the border, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that our economic prosperity has left us in a place of perpetual freedom.

For far too long we have felt we have a limitless supply of natural resources and we don’t know how to think any other way.  But if the Al Gore event in Montreal taught me anything, it was that those days are gone and in their place is coming a time when we all have to change our expectations.  I believe we know this in our minds as parliamentarians but we continue to reason as though we have limitless resources, limitless wealth, limitless fossil fuel supplies, and perhaps the most delusional of all, limitless growth.  Add to this list limitless progress and you can see that we have reached a strange era of disconnect - aware enough of the effects of climate change but not yet at that place where we are willing to legislate as though we are entering a time of limits.

It doesn’t matter how much new oil is found; our refining of it is choking the planet. And yet we proceed as though we’ll manage our way out of this mess somehow. Like others before us, we have held to a blind belief that technology will win the day and lead us into a new era of, dare I say it, “limitlessness.”  Yet creeping around the edges of our collective consciousness as parliamentarians is the silent acknowledgement that we can’t hope to cure the ills of industrialism by adding more technology.  Without admitting it to our constituents or to the media, we are slowly comprehending that the days of endless resources are over.

And yet because we can’t admit it publicly (to do so would be to acknowledge our own failure to act) we appear frozen in place, incapable of acting in a way that provides sensibly for our children and those that follow.  Having had so much to assist us - researchers, pollsters, scientists, public concern, and, yes, even Al Gore - we have failed to recognize that since the days of endless consumption are drawing to a close, we must begin to lead the Canadian public to a place of deeper responsibility and citizen commitment. Perhaps that moment will come, but it yet eludes our grasp.  More on this to follow.

The Things We Miss

Following a week long break and a rather hectic schedule of events back in the home riding, I’ve just arrived back in Ottawa in preparation for another three weeks of “rock-em, sock-em” politics.  For me, it doesn’t hold much relish.

But others clearly love it and this can only be bad news for what’s coming up in the next couple of months.  As this particular parliament grinds itself to a standstill, there is an increasing sense that we have somehow lost our way.  Put simply, the country is catching on that we can’t get our act together as a parliament and we’re sensing it too as politicians.

What makes it even more frustrating is the reality that huge issues like the environment, or pressing realities like our faltering economy, hardly form any kind of preoccupation at the moment.  I can sense from MPs from all parties that they’re frustrated as well, but the party machinery is so fearful of giving the other side the edge that we’re stuck in this kind of gridlock that the Speaker of the House – Peter Milliken – recently described as “chaos”.  Minority parliaments can work, as was evidenced in the Lester Pearson days.  And in recent governments, the knowledge that important issues were challenging the nation prompted all parties to focus their energies either for or against those issues.  Remember the debate over free trade, the repatriation of the Constitution and the two main attempts to bring Quebec in a more formalized placed within that Constitution?  Such things will definitely focus the mind and the political will.

In their place we now have rancor, bitterness, a lot of bullying, and an increasing sense of disorder.  We’ve already mentioned the environment and economy, but what about thousands of lost jobs in manufacturing, the massive breakdown of infrastructure in our cities, the worry over proposed immigration changes, or the evolving situation of the Afghanistan conflict?  These are hardly trite, and might very well alter the future of our country.  But instead we choose to focus on $300,000 lost in the Mulroney era, whether Chuck Cadman was offered a million dollar incentive, or whether the Conservatives actually broke the law in laundering a million dollars with their now infamous “in-and-out” scheme.  Do such things compare in importance to the other things mentioned above?  Hardly

Perhaps this parliament has outlived its usefulness.  I still believe, however, that we can make parts of it work if we would just step back from the partisan edge and at least seek enlightened debate on those things that matter most to this country.  I didn’t come here to find $300,000 or even a million bucks.  Climate change, poverty, the loss of jobs and much more – these are the things that occupy my mind on a daily basis and preoccupy my worries.  If there is no answer to this, then let’s get on with it and just have an election.

Home Again?

Weekends can get pretty busy.  I hadn’t been home for two weeks because of the Al Gore event in Montreal, but when I finally did get back to London there were numerous things that had to be done.

I arrived back at London airport shortly after midnight on Thursday and then had to speak at Ryerson Public School the next morning at nine o’clock.  Although a little tired, I still had a great time.  The kids were eager to learn about life in Parliament and seemed especially delighted when I worked through with them the process of trying to pass a bill in the House of Commons that would give them a week off.  It was all great fun.

Then I met with my London staff about upcoming events I was taking part in throughout the riding.  They were great and eager to get on with a work that they believe to be pretty valuable to London North Centre.

In the evening, my wife Jane and I went to the Ontario Citizenship and Immigration awards at the Marconi Club, where volunteers were recognized for their invaluable service to the London community.  Six London Food Bank volunteers were among the group honored and it was a pleasure to see them get the recognition they deserved for such outstanding work.

Saturday morning saw me at William’s Pub, the coffee house by Victoria Park, meeting with some key volunteers about putting on some important events over the next couple of months.  We talked about the difficult balancing act of working hard in London while at the same time attempting to carry some of the foreign affairs file for the Liberal Party.  Fortunately, for the last 20 years I have been trying to straddle a life between those two great pursuits and it keeps my family, friends and staff pretty busy – and understanding.

And then we loaded the kids into the car and headed to Toronto for the great rally for Darfur, held at Nathan Phillips Square and hosted by STAND Canada and Project Equity.  I was asked to be the key speaker, but my great joy came in bringing Jane and kids on the stage.  They were a huge hit and the rally itself went a long way towards keeping the Darfur situation uppermost in the Canadian mindset.  The family dropped me off at Pearson airport at five o’clock on the way back to London.  I arrived back in Ottawa at 7 p.m.

And so another weekend passed – no time for reading or writing, or even getting the kids’ trampoline set up in the back yard.  It’s difficult at times, but when I consider all the remarkable people I spent time with in London and Toronto, I count myself very fortunate to work with such dedicated individuals.

Weekend with Al Gore

Not long ago, if someone would have asked if I would like to spend a weekend with Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, I would have thought it impossible. But that’s exactly what happened last weekend in Montreal, as I spent the entire three days locked in training with 200 other Canadians, under the intense scrutiny of the former vice-president.

Most folks with remember that the environment and climate change became the focal point of my by-election victory over a year ago now and my desire to be active on that file has continued. I am a member of the Liberal Environment and Sustainability Committee and recently encouraged Stephane Dion and other leaders in the party to make the environment our key issue in the next election campaign.

Mr. Gore led every session, going through each of the slides in his famous Inconvenient Truth slideshow and taking us through the science of certain portions of his presentation. It’s been over a year since his famous film came out, winning the Academy Award, and new scientific evidence has emerged affirming the reality the our greenhouse gas emissions are slowly gripping this planet by the throat.

What surprised everyone in the sessions was Mr. Gore’s delightful sense of humor. Numerous times over the weekend he had all the attendees cracking up with laughter. Yet we all understood that the subject of our deliberations - global warming - was so serious that unless something is done immediately, there will be serious consequences, not just for our children or grandchildren, but in our own lifetime.

With the sessions finished, I now possess a cherished certificate signed by Mr. Gore himself and stating that I am one of his key Canadian presenters. And yet in many ways I hardly feel qualified. The science around global warming is layered and complex and the legislative choices facing provinces and federal members of parliament are serious indeed. Nevertheless, anything of great importance starts with a commitment to act and not just wait until we are masters of any file.

And this is what I pledge to do. Along with my wife Jane, we will build the lessons learned from this weekend into our presentations on child poverty, coming Canadian challenges, Canada’s image overseas, etc. In the coming months I’ll be making the Inconvenient Truth presentation to numerous groups in and around London, using the valuable tools provided this last weekend.

Each one of us bears a responsibility to speak out about important issues to our generation. This past weekend with Al Gore, while a wonderful privilege, is nevertheless weighing heavy on me, as I seek to fulfill an election promise in a way that will move Londoners to act in ways that are both timely and innovative.

Coast to Coast

With a week off from Parliament, I decided to collect all the invitations I had for speaking on child poverty, the environment and Darfur and spend that week travelling the country and encouraging citizen engagement on these files.  It ended up becoming a special week because I took my daughter Achan, 7 years old, and recently arrived from Darfur on the cross-country trek with me.  We started in Halifax and ended up in Whitehorse and Vancouver, with stops in between.

For some of the rallies I partnered with a group called STAND, which is an acronym for Students Taking Action Now Darfur.  Made up of both high school and university students, STAND has chapters at campuses across the country and have developed a high effective advocacy and research organization.  We had taken the executive director and advocacy director from STAND on our recent trip to Sudan and I was impressed by their sheer energy for the cause.

But the tour was also about poverty and the environment and in each location listeners expressed frustration that government wasn’t doing more in these three key areas.  Beneath the surface, however, was this abiding feeling that the individual Canadian was powerless against such overwhelming odds and the machinery of government.  So I told them the story of my wife, Jane Roy, and I and our decade of work in Sudan, building schools, freeing slaves, starting micro-enterprises and helping a newly discovered group of Darfur refugees.  I also talked about my 22 years of involvement as the executive director of the London Food Bank and about the weekend I would be spending with Al Gore in Montreal moving ahead the cause of fighting climate change.  And, naturally, I spoke about my kids from Sudan and how Jane and I were enriched by their presence in our lives.

The results were always the same.  People were moved, energized, and desirous to “get on” with the business of changing our world and making government work.  It wasn’t because of my speaking ability but because I was an individual, just like they were, attempting to make a difference.  And I reminded them that there is no point in backing politicians who take such things as Darfur, climate change and poverty in a partisan fashion, seeking to promote only their party.  These three files are bigger than us all and unless political parties cooperate together, they will not be solved.  This struck a strong resonant chord in the listeners and I believe it represents a new renaissance for Canadian politics if we could just have the courage to embrace it … and live it.

The tour now over and with my daughter sleeping soundly in bed after a grueling week, I remain deeply impressed by the transcendent ability of the average Canadian to instinctively understand that a new era of non-partisanship will bring them back to the political process.  I am both humbled and inspired with that instinctive knowledge they have, knowing innately within myself that it was just such a spirit that built this great country.  I will always be in their debt.

Productive Tension

Breaks during the winter parliamentary season are rare. Sequestered indoors in parliamentary committee rooms for endless meetings feels like something of a legislative bubble. The feeling is even more enhanced when you look out the windows to see nothing but the snow and ice of Ottawa. During such occasions most politicians feel a deep longing for their family and the need to be in more familiar surroundings. This is definitely true for me. With three young children at home, two recently adopted from Darfur, it’s easy to feel the ache for London.

And so you’re thankful to spend a week with your family and friends in the riding. You make the inevitable plans for taking the family out for dinners or to a movie, greeting your staff at the constituency office and greeting friends. But it never works out like that. The moment you arrive in your riding office there are numerous requests for meetings from advocacy groups, individuals needing assistance to access the large government machine, and an abundance of requests for people wanting you to speak at their event during the week you are home. By the end of the first day back you realize all your best-laid plans have floundered due to so many requests.

And yet these are the very people who elected you or who form vital aspects to your community and they deserve the attention. Fortunately for me, I have a family that understands. I’m also thankful that many of the groups who ask me to come to their important occasions are more than willing to accommodate my wife and children.

This is another side of parliamentary work that is hard for most people to comprehend. Some feel legislators have a pretty ease time of things - lots of perks, exotic travel and undertaking important assignments. This has not been my experience to date. I have worked at various jobs during my life but never one as hard as this. And that’s the way it should be because we should sign on to the job of a parliamentarian unless you willing to see yourself as a public servant.

Then there are those other responsibilities - food bank volunteer director (this week is our big spring food drive) and overseeing, as director, our African charitable organization - which also whittle away at your time.

The end of the week is now upon me and I look at my children with a slight sense of guilt and at my wife with a deep sense of togetherness missed. Yet there is this abiding sense that in meeting with so many different people this week that government has an important place in the lives of so many individuals and families. A week so busy and away from family nevertheless had the fortunate result of me spending time with so many individuals and groups that make London North Centre such a remarkable community. It’s a difficult trade-off but it’s one I’ll take. If I can make my own country and riding a better place, then I have also provided something that can enrich the quality of life for my own family.

Toward a “Muscular” Liberalism

Much of what transpires everyday in Parliament is meaningful and sometimes productive, but such things often take place outside of the public eye. What most Canadians read or see in the media is primarily centered in conflict, in part because modern media, by its own admission, thrives on such tension and either reports it or at times helps to create it. Political parties feed such a beast by staying in a kind of permanent attack mode. And so the running narrative about this present Parliament concentrates on scandals, question period and rampant partisanship.

I am a Liberal, and a proud one, but at times I get the sense that true Liberalism is being clouded by the disturbing signs of 24/7 sabre-rattling. The time has come for a different kind of qualitative liberalism - something that is dedicated to the lives people actually live. Many Liberal MPs here actually behave as though this kind of politics is what really matter, and they are right. Trouble is, their reasonings and successes rarely get noticed by the non-stop politics of this place right now.
The problems such people wrestle with have to do with education, medical care, climate change, housing, elder care, infrastructure, Canada’s image in the world, child poverty - in other words, those things that make a true difference in the lives of the average person.

This is qualitative liberalism and it doesn’t come neatly wrapped in a box or from some kind of partisan political manual. It is rather a struggle between what we want to be as a citizenry and how our elected representatives can help us get there. It isn’t about getting your vote but calling out your values; not about manipulating you with partisan imagery but moving you with creative imagination; not about selling you a message but about sharing joint meaning.

Right now, this present Parliament faces a strange irony: Canada is richer than ever before but is devoting a decreasing share of its wealth to the common welfare. This latest Conservative budget only continues that downward trend. The country presently requires a liberalism that raises the question of why such affluence has led to the impoverishment of the Canadian spirit. True liberalism is “muscular” liberalism, the kind the rolls up its sleeves and tackles the deepest abiding problems of our present age. It’s time to get past the “noise” and listen to the deeper cries for a true Canadian national vision.