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.

Glen Pearson in Ottawa: A Different Perspective on Canadian Politics

I am still new enough to Parliament that I view it through something of a detached lens. I watch the bitter partisanship that so often substitutes for political discourse and I feel the same sense of revulsion expressed by voters.

There has clearly been an alteration of tone and civility in this most hallowed of political chambers in Canada. All parties must share the responsibility and much of the blame. Something is slipping and it’s becoming obvious. Seasoned politicians and journalists have claimed that it wasn’t always this way; it has been primarily the last two years in which decorum in the House has sunk to significant lows. A certain moral and intellectual strength is ebbing away. The field of once blooming ideas has withered and Canada is slowly losing its way, its national will, and that deep and abiding sense of purpose that once brought this nation together and held it in place despite our numerous differences.

It’s probably easy for anyone reading these lines to understand that I’m something of an idealist. But I am an idealist without illusions. Great issues are debated in Parliament and partisanship actually does work for the greater good - but only when points of view are held in respect. We can’t always agree, but we can choose to respect the other views, realizing they come from genuine public servants attempting to represent the hard-won convictions of their own respective communities. In my short time here I have witnessed many politicians from all stripes attempting to honorably live out their sense of purpose.

It is when things turn mean or personal that our sense of a higher, more noble calling suddenly takes a nosedive. The public good must regularly trump rank partisanship, lest the political system itself become little else but words and reasoning always falling on deaf ears.

In the coming days I will take readers inside what I call the parallel parliament, a place where committed individuals from all parties are coming together to affect real change. To see an example of what I am talking about, click here. Or here.

Glen Pearson

To return to glenpearson.ca click here.