Politics as Unusual: Sanity Found

Awkward when first addressing an audience, you eventually find your political voice and the right cadence. Some politicians are preternaturally nimble. They can dance, bob and weave, and speak on the spot. For most of us, though, it’s tough work developing catchphrases and amusing little stories, and you fall in love with your hard-won creations. They start appearing over and over again in your speeches, but, mesmerized by the sound of your own voice, you don’t notice. Miraculously, often enough you get a laugh, even from people who have heard it all before. Just the same, if you need to constantly recycle your material, as most MPs do, it’s a good idea to have an assistant who consistently finds you speaking engagements with fresh audiences.

For the politician, it’s always about me. Once, during a holiday weekend outside Toronto, my older son cut his lip. We headed directly to the emergency ward at the local hospital. Noticing that we were from Toronto, the doctor said, “I’m from Toronto, too.” “Where in Toronto? ” I asked. “Yonge and Lawrence,” she said. The St. Paul’s riding map dancing around in my head, I asked, “Which side of Yonge Street?” I was trolling for votes in the emergency ward, my son barely a concern. Me, me, me — it never stopped. You go to sleep wondering and then dreaming about tomorrow’s papers. “Good night, dear.”

The only thing worse for a politician than a morning newspaper without his name in it is a political book without his name in it. Newspapers are daily, and each new edition provides renewed hope. Books hang around, and if you’re not mentioned they just sit there as constant reminders of your insignificance. When a new political book comes out, MPs hit the bookstores — always at odd hours, to avoid detection — and discreetly examine the index to see if they are mentioned. If not, the book is banned from the MP’s office. If you are mentioned, you buy multiple copies for friends and family. (Note to publishers: to increase sales, pack your indexes with as many politicos as possible.) Sometimes, there are too many other MPs about, so rather than thumbing through a new book at the stacks you are forced to buy it to get a closer look. You approach the checkout desk like a teenager buying condoms. The book you want is the third or fourth in a bundle of five or six, all the ones you don’t care about being serious scholarly tomes. (Note to university presses: though your sales are small, you have MPs to thank.) If you are not mentioned in a hot new political book, good excuses include, “I spoke to the author and insisted that I not be quoted,” “I just provided background,” and “The writer missed the real story.” In secret, you begin writing your own book — to set the record straight.

(The visceral need politicians have for attention never leaves them. Look at the political memoirs: Never Retreat, Never Explain, Never Apologize (Deborah Grey), Worth Fighting For (Sheila Copps), No Surrender (Hugh Segal), and the self-congratulatory memoirs of Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien. These books could just as easily be called Still in Your Face or Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? And after the memoir, it’s the book tour, the interviews, the panels. It isn’t about the money — it’s the screen time, their names in print.)

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, my boys, five and seven when I won the nomination, had become strangers frozen in time. I lived in Ottawa during the week and was thankful to be free of distractions from home. I’d fly home for weekends and make a point of spending as much time as possible with the boys. “The problem is,” my wife said, “you blow into town, change the rules, upset everything, try to be Super Dad, and then, come Sunday night, you’re gone again.”

I’d fly back to Ottawa every Sunday night, vowing to be a better husband and father next time out. I didn’t get it. My wife tried to tell me how bad things were. Self-absorbed and myopic, I didn’t hear her. Then, during a late-night phone conversation, I said, “I guess you’re like a single parent.” “Oh, it’s worse than that,” she said. “If I was a single parent, I would organize my life accordingly, simplify things. The problem is that you keep coming home.” This I couldn’t help but hear. And this: “What are you doing here?” my nine-year-old asked me one night when I appeared in his room.

Home life had indeed become strange in my absence. “We’re doing fine,” my older son would say. “The country needs you.” Still, he was always quick to admonish me whenever I used my political voice, that cadence so finely tuned by then. He knew when I was “possessed by politics,” and to him it meant only one thing: I wasn’t being a father. His younger brother was another story. Each time I called, he would ask, “When are you coming home?” I would try to explain, would say that when I was a lawyer I often arrived home long after he had gone to bed. “I want a father who sleeps in the same house as me,” he said, not missing a beat. He’d grab my legs to stop me leaving for Ottawa, but I would leave. When I was in Ottawa, he slept in our room.

“Two weeks? Two weeks and no new laws?” one of my boys said. “Yes,” I said, “and millions of Canadians are grateful for that.” I was home for the Christmas break, and I began to realize that it was time for me to stay home, to sleep in my own bed. The alternative was to run in the upcoming election (and probably win), but to what end and at what cost? The cost of leaving was high — I would never be in Cabinet — but the cost of staying was potentially higher and more permanent: loss of my family and my life before politics. I worried about letting down my colleagues. After all, they had become my surrogate family, I thought. I snapped out of this dream world when former Liberal minister John Roberts (himself ill at the time) told me, somewhat bitterly, “Just remember, at the end of your days in that hospital bed, it won’t be your caucus colleagues gathered around you.” He was right. I made arrangements to see the prime minister.

There comes a time to leave, but most stay on. They’re stuck. It’s understandable. In my experience, nothing else is as exhilarating. At any moment, you can become a hero or a bum, and life in that place in between is its own kick. You convince yourself that if you hang on for just one more election, you will make it into Cabinet, be noticed more, get something important done, and have a softer landing when you finally do leave. Then you can put all the pieces back together again. It’s not hard to give up the perks; what’s tough is giving up your sense of who you are and where you fit in. “I miss deciding things,” an ex-minister told me. He was on to something. Some never give up the hope of running again. They can’t help themselves.

Word got out that I wouldn’t be running. Many colleagues were upset. This was gratifying, extremely so. I felt wanted. At the same time, I was stunned by the number of MPs (from all political parties) who confided in me that they wished they could leave as well. For some, it was too late. Their marriages were in trouble or over, their children estranged. We had spent the past five years telling each other that all was well; many of us had been faking it. We were good at this dark art; we learned it on the job. Other MPs avoided me. Apparently, leaving of your own accord is threatening to some of those who stay. The public doesn’t know it, but politicians pay a heavy price for their service. They seldom, if ever, talk about it. Too bad.