Acknowledgements
A project of this size and scope is not possible without the hard work, helpful advice and encouragement of a wide variety of people. We are particularly indebted to the generous support of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians, and in particular to Léo Duguay, Francis LeBlanc, Jack Murta, Susan Simms and the late Honourable Douglas Frith, for supporting this project from its very early days.
Thank you also to the 65 former Members of Parliament who gave generously of their time to be interviewed, and willingly shared their experiences and perspectives with us. A list of all participating MPs is available in the appendix. Thank you equally to those MPs who also agreed to participate and to whom we have not yet spoken. We were warned that there would be reluctance among many to participate in this project, and we were delighted to learn that this wasn’t the case.
We are also grateful to those who worked with us to organize and conduct the interviews. Mariève Forest interviewed former MPs in Quebec and parts of eastern Ontario. Reva Seth interviewed some of the MPs in southern Ontario, and Morris Chochla interviewed those in northern Ontario. Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan interviewed everyone else. Ruth Ostrower coordinated the transportation and other logistics required to visit so many communities across Canada. Each also reviewed and provided helpful comments on early drafts of this report.
Simon Andrews, Donna Banham, Allison Buchan-Terrell, Andrew Dickson, Emilie Dionne, Suzanne Gallant, Myna Kota, Joseph McPhee, Charles Perrin, Bronwyn Schoner and Nick Van der Graff transcribed the interview tapes.
Joshua Knelman provided leadership in framing, drafting and editing the report. Sarah Blanchard, Grant Burns, Suzanne Gallant, Shira Honig and Myna Kota provided equally valuable help in analyzing the interview transcripts and selecting quotations. Along with Andreas Krebs, they also suggested many improvements to the text. Peter McNelly provided interview training to ensure consistency in the interviewers’ approach. We are also indebted to Professor Mary Ann McColl for her training on qualitative research methods, and to Paul Kim for designing this publication. We are also grateful to the team at Trioro for designing the web version of this report, and to Alison MacMillan for filming the online video. Thank you to Patrick Johnston for suggesting we get advice from former Parliamentarians in the first place.
A number of people reviewed earlier drafts and provided important suggestions for improvement, including Elly Alboim, Yaroslav Baran, Professor Sylvia Bashevkin, Professor William Cross, Professor David Docherty, Léo Duguay, Dr. Chaviva Hošek, Professor Luc Juillet, Francis LeBlanc, Professor Peter Loewen, Professor Jonathan Malloy, Velma McColl, Professor Matthew Mendelsohn, Jack Murta, Geoff Norquay, Susan Simms, Sinead Tuite and William Young. Each provided excellent advice for which we are most grateful. Any errors, of course, are our own.
Samara’s Advisory Board also contributed helpful suggestions from the outset of this project. Thank you to Sujit Choudhry, Heather Conway, Scott Gilmore, Robert Prichard and Perry Spitznagel.
Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan