Two overriding trends emerged from these reflections, raising provocative and important questions for the health of our democracy.
First, what the MPs described as their “real work” was done away from the public spotlight in the more private spaces of Parliament. In fact, the MPs told us that the politics most commonly seen by the public—that which took place on the floor of the House of Commons—did little to advance anything constructive.
Instead, the MPs insisted they did their best work—collaborating across parties, debating and advancing policy, and bringing local issues to the national stage—in the less publicized venue of committees and the private space of caucus.
Furthermore, the MPs claimed to be embarrassed by the public displays of politics in the House of Commons, saying they misrepresented their work. Many blamed this behaviour for contributing to a growing sense of political disaffection among Canadians. They were frustrated with the public performance of their parties, and said it led them to pursue their goals elsewhere, away from the public and media gaze.
The MPs’ insistence that important work was done only in private raises some serious questions for Canadian democracy and citizens’ ability to engage with it.
After all, how are Canadians to observe and understand the work of their elected representatives— to say nothing of their ability to hold them accountable—if all the “real work” is done away from the public gaze? And if the MPs were so embarrassed by the behaviour on display in the House of Commons, why didn’t they do something to change it?
This leads to the second major trend:
the consistent observation from the MPs that the
greatest frustrations they faced during their
political careers came from within their
own political party. Although our interviews did not
specifically ask about political parties, time after time the MPs articulated how decisions from their parties’ leadership were often viewed as opaque, arbitrary and even unprofessional, and how their parties’ demands often ran counter to the MPs’ desires to practice politics in a constructive way.
While these interviews were intended to explore the lives of Members of Parliament, much of what we heard actually reflected being a Member of a Party. Indeed, the uneasy relationship between the MPs and the management of their political parties resembles the relationship between the local owner of a national franchise and its corporate management. In fact, this tension is one of the central themes running through Samara’s MP exit interview project as a whole.
As we will discuss in greater detail in Chapter 2, the MPs consistently pointed to their parties’ management practices, and the incentives and punishments the parties put in place, as significant obstacles to advancing the “real work” of Parliament. While a certain amount of friction in the relationship between MPs and their parties is unavoidable, it would appear that little is done to manage, never mind mitigate, the tension.
Democracy relies on citizen engagement to thrive, but if MPs themselves are disenchanted with their own parties, then it should come as no surprise when citizens also choose to opt out. After all, if MPs—who arguably benefit more than any other citizen from political party membership—claim that the party leadership pushes them away from constructive politics, is it any wonder that so many Canadians also turn away?
If what the MPs told us is true, and our political parties do play a role in the dysfunction of Canadian politics, then it follows that they also have a role to play in helping to overcome it.
Political parties serve at least four critical functions in our democracy: engaging citizens in politics, selecting candidates for elected office, aggregating policy perspectives and contesting elections. It may well be time to discuss ways to revitalize our political parties, recognizing the integral role they play in Canadian democracy.