Deciding to Run: Getting to yes
The way MPs described being asked to run had an element of mystery to it. Most said "the ask" was unexpected or accidental. A variety of people did the asking, usually in one of three ways.
The most common was to be approached by a friend or acquaintance. One Parliamentarian recounted a visit from a critical care nurse, active in the community, who encouraged her to run. “I would not have run for political office if this woman had not shown up at my door and said, ‘We’d like you to try and do this,’” the MP said. Another, who’d served in both local and provincial politics, said, “I think what got me to run federally was somebody saying, ‘Here is the challenge, are you up for it?’ Because that had never been part of my thinking at all.”
Often, those asking were people involved in their political party’s riding association. One MP recalled: “I was approached by someone heading up the search. They said, ‘We are looking for someone to run for the nomination for Member of Parliament. We think we can win the seat.’ I said, ‘Oh, let me think, who could we get?’ and he said, ‘No I mean you.’ I hadn’t really thought about it.”
Another had a similar story. “One of my friends, who was on the board of the constituency association and knew me personally, came to my door and said, ‘We want you to run as our candidate.’ I said, “You’ve got to be kidding. That is not really in the cards.’ I laughed him off. Every three or four days he would be at my door.... He persisted.”
Other times, the MP was close to or involved with a group designated to identify a candidate, and found themselves as the chosen one. One recounted a story: “I said, ‘I’ll join our local riding association, and try to contribute rather than just go to [Tim] Horton’s, [complain] and not get much done.’ For a year we’d have a monthly meeting where we did nothing... and I decided, ‘I’ll move on.’ But before I had a chance to resign, the executive search committee asked me to be president. So we got things going. We had to heighten the profile of the party and get a new candidate. We approached the former candidate, who had lost three times, and asked him if he would announce that he wasn’t seeking [the nomination] again. He refused, waited, saw the field, thought he could beat them and announced his candidacy. This was three weeks before our nomination meeting. I realized he was going to get it, which meant the work we’d done would’ve gone down the drain. That’s when I decided, ‘I’ll take a shot at it, to see if we can get this’.” The MP signed up 1,200 members and won on the first ballot. “So bingo, I’m the candidate. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to do it,” the MP said.
Only a few were nurtured and supported by the national political party, or chosen as the candidate directly by the party leader. “I got a call from [the party leader], and he said, ‘You’re going to be nominated tomorrow. I want you as my candidate, so we’re actually nominating you,’” recounted one MP. The next day the nomination was announced in the paper. “Then we had to put a team together and win,” the MP said.