Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

What are we doing here?

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:12am - 17 Comments

Samara has released its second report based on exit interviews with former members of parliament.

The MPs acknowledged arriving in Ottawa feeling largely unprepared for what lay ahead. They recall their initial orientation to Parliament as hurried, slap—dash or altogether absent. They had little initial sense of where to focus and their assignments seemed to be allocated at random … Perhaps more worryingly, the MPs that we interviewed held often—conflicting ideas regarding the role and purpose of a Member of Parliament. Their interviews revealed that they didn’t agree on what they were elected to accomplish or what the essential purpose of their role was intended to be.

Tags: house of commons, Parliament, Samara

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Emily

It's a steep learning curve, and some MPs never make it. That's why 'recall' was a dumb idea, and as I expected, one of the first to get tossed.

It would help a great deal if 'civics' was a mandatory high school subject all across Canada so they could at least start out with some general idea of how Parliament operates.
Sigh

The comments of the MPs in the report suggest to me that the ones who feel lost when they arrive in Parliament are the ones who have not bothered to find out anything about their new job before going to Ottawa (or even deciding to run). They have many excuses (no time, hadn't planned on a political career, etc.) but this doesn't excuse them. Any reasonable person embarking on a new career in any other field would be expected to have done a little background research on what the job entails. These are not kids – the report give the average age of new MPs as 47 – they should, by that age, have some idea of how the professional world works.
Jenn_

Good questions to ask come election time.
lgarvin

Really, I'm getting a little tired of all the whining from these people. You're well paid, well connected and well supported. Maybe if you all showed a little backbone and a little initative you could, you know… do something with that.

RIchard

Amen. For most of them it is the best job they ever had, and best job they ever could have.
http://twitter.com/AlisonLoat @AlisonLoat

Hi lgarvin, thanks for your messages. I think you and the other comments rightly reflect that there are lots of resources that people don't take advantage of. But I'd be remiss if I did add that most weren't 'complaining' – more reflecting on how little orientation or training exists and how overwhelming the initial days and weeks were.

If you compare Parliament to any other workplace (which may or may not be a fair comparison), it's notable how little support is provided to help the transition (or at many other junctures along the way). For example, the wide variety of ways in which they described their job suggests there is no introduction to what the job actually *is* and no shared view of what an MPs responsibilities are.

The main reason I worry about has less to do with the individual MP, and more with what happens to politics, and our perceptions of it, when we leave it to chance. If you have a moment, please read this short attempt to summarize the implications – I'd be curious what you think: http://www.samaracanada.com/Implications

lgarvin

Hi Alison,

The implications that concern you most – the inefficiency, the tensions and disagreements, the lack of clarity – are not flaws necessarily. It's my opinion that MPs, ideally, are sent to parliament with the objective of going into the ring and fighting for their ideals, or their constituents, or their pet projects, or just for the sheer joy of fighting if they've got nothing else. I don't want standardized, efficient, like-minded people with a common purpose. I shudder at the thought, actually.

I want MPs to go to the Hill already prepared with a purpose of their own, a good understanding of how the place works, and a strategy for achieving their goals through persuasion, debate, horse-trading and sheer determination. Some will win and some will lose and that's the way I'd choose to have it.

I'm far from satisfied with the calibre of our politicians but I am very skeptical of attempts to improve them through further indoctrination or orientation. The problems are real but, to my mind, most of the proposed solutions are worse. What voters need to do, is demand much, much more from the people we elect. More character, more conviction and more courage to stand up to their leaders. It's what we pay them for… and we are not getting our money's worth.

http://twitter.com/AlisonLoat @AlisonLoat

Compelling points – agree in particular with your third paragraph. I'd still love it, though, if there were a culture where people were encouraged to understand how Parliament works, what its central functions are and how the MP supports those. That by no means suggests standardized, efficient, like-minded people – at least I hope it doesn't or we're in trouble. Parliament and politics are at their best when there is a healthy exchange of ideas. It depends on engagement, so if it frustrates and drives away people, we've also got a problem.

What forms any improvement efforts take, ultimately, I'm less concerned with. For what it's worth, my personal view is that by the time we get to Parliament it's probably too late and as you say, it's much more about figuring out how to reengage voters (we'll have more on that later) and ideally students. As you mention, it's easy to point out the problems but trying to sort out how to address them constructively is much less straightforward.

We thought it useful to start by trying to document some of this more systematically so that we can at least contribute to a discussion. This has been a great one. Thanks very much for reading and please feel free to pass on ideas or feedback anytime.

lgarvin

Here's a partial list of the people participating in this latest Samara study…

The Honourable Peter Adams
The Honourable Reginald Alcock
The Honourable David Anderson
The Honourable Jean Augustine
The Honourable Eleni Bakopanos
The Honourable Susan Barnes
The Honourable Reverend William Blaikie
The Honourable Don Boudria
The Honourable Claudette Bradshaw
The Honourable Edward Broadbent
The Honourable Sarmite Bulte
The Honourable Joseph Comuzzi
The Honourable Roy Cullen
The Honourable Paul DeVillers
The Honourable Claude Drouin
The Honourable John Efford
The Honourable Roger Gallaway
The Honourable John Godfrey
The Honourable Bill Graham
The Honourable Loyola Hearn
The Honourable Charles Hubbard
The Honourable Walt Lastewka
The Honourable Paul Macklin
The Right Honourable Paul Martin
The Honourable Anne McLellan
The Honourable Andrew Mitchell
The Honourable Denis Paradis
The Honourable Pierre Pettigrew
The Honourable Andy Scott
The Honourable Carol Skelton
The Honourable Monte Solberg
The Honourable Andrew Telegdi
The Honourable Paddy Torsney

That's 33 of 65 participants who were Cabinet Ministers or members of the Privy Council. Babes in the wood… sent to the slaughter… sink or swim… you poor dears.

Yes, I'm being unkind. They should properly be thanked for trying to help improve things for those who come after. But really, it's hard not to mock them for complaining of inadequate supervision.

Pssst! You've been elected to lead, stop complaining that you don't know who or what to follow. Prepare for the job before you represent yourself as being already qualified for it.

Sigh

I think you last sentence pretty well sums it up. These are people who go through an election campaign claiming that they are more qualified than the other candidates for the job. There is a certain irony in then getting the job and complaining that you are not qualified.

http://twitter.com/AlisonLoat @AlisonLoat

Hi lgarvin, thanks for your messages. I think you and the other comments rightly reflect that there are lots of resources that people don't take advantage of. But I'd be remiss if I did add that most weren't 'complaining' – more reflecting on how little orientation or training exists and how overwhelming the initial days and weeks were.

If you compare Parliament to any other workplace (which may or may not be a fair comparison), it's notable how little support is provided to help the transition (or at many other junctures along the way). For example, the wide variety of ways in which they described their job suggests there is no introduction to what the job actually *is* and no shared view of what an MPs responsibilities are.

The main reason I worry about has less to do with the individual MP, and more with what happens to politics, and our perceptions of it, when we leave it to chance. If you have a moment, please read this short attempt to summarize the implications – I'd be curious what you think: http://www.samaracanada.com/Implications
madeyoulook

The paragraph quoted by Aaron (ill-prepared, inadequately oriented, uncertain of role) leaves me with a very simple question, expanded very eloquently by Igarvin above: What on earth were they running for election as an MP for?

People: Get a clue. THEN get a mandate.

http://twitter.com/AlisonLoat @AlisonLoat

:) For what it's worth, here's what they said their motivations were: http://www.samaracanada.com/Motivations

madeyoulook

Thank you for that link.

Some considered politics as a way to solve complex problems they believed couldn’t be adequately addressed by business or private philanthropy alone.

You can bet that business people and major philanthropists embark on responsible due diligence before they act. So why don't they do that here? Or, at least once they show up, why don't they put some of their own personal initiative, which seemed to exist prior to and during their candidacy, towards getting acclimatized? It is a bit rich to hear this whining at the end of their terms.

http://twitter.com/AlisonLoat @AlisonLoat

Thank you for your comment and very good questions!! The more I look across all these interviews and our attempts to communicate the collective narratives and draw some insights into how we can improve our politics, the more this lack of preparation is part of a much larger theme of "accidental" that characterizes politics in Canada (and maybe elsewhere). Much is left to chance – from our failure to teach civics, the general reluctance MPs and others express about politics as a worthwhile endeavour, the fact that we have to mildly coerce people to run (most of whom have little experience in national affairs), the opaque nomination process, the lack of any appropriate professional training… in a way it's no surprise that people haven't thought through things as much as we'd like them to. We can blame the individuals, sure – and they should be held to account – but there are wider systems-level issues at play here too that go beyond any one MP.

There are some advantages to it (e.g., system is more open to people who aren't lifetime politicos), and some may argue that it's fine or that the any efforts to do anything are fruitless or damaging, but it's worth discussing more widely in my (admittedly biased) opinion. We can be quite certain that sitting still will not improve things any!

Sigh

On the other hand, the mentoring system used by the Bloc sounds effective. I wonder why the other parties don't have something similar.

Apologies for the fragmented comments. For some reason I couldn't post this all at once.
lgarvin

Apologies for the fragmented comments. For some reason I couldn't post this all at once.

Get yourself a login ID and you can edit your comments to avoid that "Message too long," obstacle. I found it very frustrating before I got an ID.