The Best/Worst Place I Ever Worked

High listeners, just a note that this episode contains some discussion of harassment and sexual assault. Please take care while listening. What makes a good workplace culture? What does it look like? Free snacks? No meetings on Fridays? Casual dress code? Calm dogs in the office? It might sound basic, but we do our best work when we feel valued and respected, where it's safe to learn and grow when there's an understanding that we are workers but also people with lives outside of our job. Parliament Hill is definitely not your average workplace. For MPs, the line between personal and professional is blurred and there's a high likelihood of threats, harassment and intimidation. But if we want our democracy to be healthy, shouldn't their workplace be healthy too? I'm Sabrina Dellin and this is Humans of the House, a show where we draw on interviews from a dozen former MPs who served at some point in the last two parliaments. So people who left office between 2015 and 2021 were sharing the real stories of former members of Parliament. In this episode, we're examining the House of Commons as a workplace because it is, so what's it really like to work there? Last episode, we followed our former MPs through an average week in the life while they were in office. You actually have to go sit in the House of Commons or it's something like six hours. If I have a model out of Toronto, Toronto, to Frederickton, I was flying probably 15 hours a week for nine months of the year. If there's two things I took away from this, it's that number one, MPs spend a lot of time on the job and I wasn't the only one who was blown away by just how much. We surveyed over two dozen former MPs and got responses from across Canada and a range of parties. We asked them, what surprised you about being a member of Parliament? Here are some of the answers read by our colleagues. What a grind it is. How hard it would be on my family. I had been an entrepreneur previously and thought that was hard work. This was a whole new level. There's no amount of preparation possible for the workload and health impacts of being in office. I put on an average of a pound a month every month when I was in office. I drove over 5,000 kilometers each month. Which brings me to the second thing that stood out. An MP's work environment is everywhere. In an average week MPs are traveling from Parliament Hill to their writings and back again. Depending on their roles in the house, even more travel within Canada or abroad might be on the books. Add to this the expectation these days that you always be online and responsive. I don't know about you, but it sounds like time to process complex issues, things through strategies and rest would make for a much better MP. So we had to ask with so much to do and so many demands, when do MPs get to shut off? What's it like to have zero downtime? And how does that affect other parts of your life? I think one of the most disturbing statistics that I've heard is that the highest rate of divorce in any profession is politicians. That may be true and I understand it because of the time when we have to invest in this job, if we were paid by the hour, we'd all be millionaires. But that is not the case. What former MP Romeo Saghanash heard has truth to it. Divorce rates for MPs are really high. Parliamentary library research from 2013 shows that 85% of MPs back then were divorced. Sure, some of them may have been divorced before they entered Parliament, but that's more than twice the national average. Two years later, another study found that the divorce rate for women MPs was 50%. Divorce has happened for a range of reasons, but these numbers helped to show that this role is tough on your personal life. Catherine McKenna is very familiar with the sheer amount of work this job can take and the impact it can have on a family. She was elected in October of 2015, sworn in a few weeks later and immediately became Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Within a couple of weeks, this role had her at the COP21 Climate Conference in Paris, where she went to negotiate a global standard in fighting the climate crisis. That's a lot. As a mom of three, she didn't find Parliament very family-friendly. Parliament was designed at a time where honestly I was about to have white men that left their spouses and came to town. That's just not the case right now. If we are going to attract the best in the brightest and diversity, including parents, including women, we're going to have to do things a lot better. Over the past few years, we've navigated major changes with how, when, and where we work. Hybrid work spaces, inclusive leadership, four-day work weeks, these are always work is evolving. For Catherine, this kind of big picture thinking was not part of life in Parliament. In fact, a lot of basic professional standards just simply weren't there. Why are there not normal practices here? Why aren't there normal rules about not keeping people up all night for days on end with votes that were to make a point? I thought that was uncomfortable and in fact, actually dangerous for people's health. We have people that are older and we have other underlying conditions and I hate it because I was exhausted. Look, I'm a hardcore person. I just didn't see the point. I just thought it was an extremely strange work environment. As the MP for Ottawa Centre, Catherine had the unique advantage of barely having to travel between work and home, but that also came with some downsides. I was always in Ottawa. There was a complete blurring of all lines. I had a journalist say, well, how's this work life balance going? Because I think I'm going to subset that in the campaign. I kind of laughed. That day, I had told my team, and my both teams, so I had a ministerial team, and then my constituency team, that I was literally turning off my phone at six o'clock to late o'clock. I had to do that and I said, I'm not going to receptions. I'm not going to events during the week. I've got to go home, have dinner with my kids, and make sure they're doing their homework and put them to bed. That was super liberating. I mean, in my case, I was just overwhelmed, quite frankly, because I was working on climate change, trying to get a climate plan in Canada, and I had to travel a lot. So when I was home, I was for sure going to make sure that I had time with my kids, and I was always feeling guilty. So I actually literally had to do it for my own sanity. I do think we need to reflect on the role of the parliamentarian, because the reality is, if you're doing events every single night, or you're in Ottawa having to work late in committee, and you're in the House of Commons, and then on weekends, you come home, and all you do is go to events from the morning, noon, night, you have no time for yourself or for your family, and that's just not healthy, and that's not an expectation, really, from any other job. We ask parliamentarians get paid well, but at the same time, I mean, I think to be effective, you have to, you know, be able to spend time with your family. Science has proven that around the clockwork leads to major drops in performance, and also that taking breaks improves creativity and problem solving, which sounds pretty essential for running a country, especially one with six time zones. Think of the travel time and jet lag. I just think it needs a total rethink, and that's from top to bottom, including how parliament works or does it work, because I think it's unacceptable voting through the night. It's not just Catherine, lots of MPs we surveyed echoed that idea. We asked them about their biggest challenges while in office. Being away from my family. Balancing travel and family and the work. Voting for 36 hours straight is insane and not healthy. Those are the intents and perhaps questionable demands of the job, and the weight can increase depending on if you have additional roles. If you're a cabinet minister, you're jetting across the country or sometimes around the world. Parliamentary secretaries too. Even a backbench member might find themselves fact-finding on international trips or criss-crossing Canada. Wait Sabrina, sorry. So MPs take on other roles. This is Elena, a producer on this show. Hey, I was just thinking it would be great to get some clarity on all of these roles. Agreed. Let's bring in VJ, one of our researchers. You two can break down some of the roles in the House of Commons, because if we're going to understand the workplace culture, I want to make sure we all know who's doing what. All right, VJ, take me through the different roles and MP can play in the House of Commons. Sure thing. Let's take a step back to our high school civics class for a moment. There are three branches in our system of government. there's the judicial branch, so the courts. Now they're super important, but not super relevant for right now. Gotcha. So we're focusing on the last two because that's where MPs are. The legislative branch is all about laws, debating, voting, that includes MPs and the Senate. The executive branch are the big decision makers. They prepare bills for debate in the house and they implement existing policy. That includes the prime minister, their cabinet, the monarch, and the governor general representing the monarch in Canada. We've mentioned cabinet ministers before. What exactly are cabinet ministers? Well, cabinet ministers are picked by the prime minister. They're usually MPs. They typically lead a department or a ministry. So there's a minister of health and a minister of the environment and things like that. Definitely. And those could change, by the way, depending on what the government wants to focus on and what the country might need at the time. For example, the minister of the environment is now the minister of the environment and climate change. In 2021, we saw Canada's first ever minister of mental health and addictions. Right. And like 100 years ago, they probably had an minister of horse traffic laws. I can't verify that with. Unverified. I've also heard our MPs talk about being parliamentary secretaries. What does that mean? Think of it like a cabinet minister's right hand person. So the prime minister has a parliamentary secretary as well. They're supposed to be a bridge, I guess you could say, between the minister and parliament. They help out with a minister's portfolio. They can speak on behalf of the minister and the House of Commons, but they don't get a minister's full powers. They can't just do anything if they want. Very much the robin to a cabinet minister's Batman. That's a great analogy. All right. So we've got cabinet ministers, parliamentary secretaries, back bench MPs. Anything else? Well, there are some roles within each party in parliament. Right. So we all know the party leader. They're also party whips. They're responsible for making sure that all the members are acting in accordance with the parties' customs and norms and sort of voting on issues the same way. But this makes them often unpopular among other MPs. There are also roles within the House of Commons that strictly have to do with House business. When I picture roles in the House, I'm thinking about the speaker of the House, you know, Mr. Speaker, I picture the speaker kind of like a referee or an MC at a wedding, you know. Yeah, referee, MC maybe even school teacher at times. Right. They oversee and they guide the proceedings of the House of Commons. They give MPs the floor to speak. The Honourable Member for Edmonton River Band. Mr. Speaker, under this prime minister, they might rain things in if it gets to what's called "Umparlamentary." Some of the comments have not been very parliamentary. I just want to remind the Honourable Members. Right. So I'm sure there's so many more roles to cover, VJ, but I think I'm pretty confident with with the basics, with a general who's who. I would say that you are well versed in the players in parliament. Thanks, VJ, and Elena. When we imagine the day-to-day life of an MP, it might sound like this. The Party Question Period, they call it QP, is only scheduled for 45 minutes each day that the House meets. When it's not the fireworks and back and forth of QP, members are debating bills and motions, presenting petitions from constituents, reporting on committee work, and so on. Most of what happens in Parliament flies under the radar. It's only the most sensational moments from the House of Commons that go viral or make the news. It's not big drama every day over there. That said, how pervasive is heckling in question period? What is it like to step into that environment as a new MP? Here's former Windsor-to-Cumsey MP, Cheryl Hardcastle. Going into the House of Commons, uh, horror nightmare. The level of heckling and hostility within it was, some people were really harsh, I felt, on ministers that were younger women during question period, they can yell things like, to one minister who's a younger woman that was proud that she had this position was, you know, needing to prove herself. Just being yelled at from a senior MP, who should know better? And just yell, like, sit down, sit down, you're in over your head, just sit down. As the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and later, the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, Katherine McKenna had a lot coming her way during question period. I was in the line of fire in the House of Commons, and that was one thing. It wasn't pretty, and I also, so I have things to say about question period and how we run question period. And the ones again, that actually goes to regular workplace. I think it's almost like harassment. When I got in, I had no idea that people would just be screaming at me and heckling you. You can barely actually think to get your answer. I actually committed that I would not read my answers, but it's very high when people are yelling and you're trying to just get your answer back. And I don't know why we don't put an end to that. Like, I think speakers have to be way tougher, by the way. And I think for women, it's extremely odd. And I don't want to generalize my women, but as I say, I'm really tough. I went to law school. I lived in a war zone. I'm a competitive swimmer from Hamilton. And I just could not believe this. This environment, it's like this little cage match, everyone to scream me. And then everyone, it just gets everyone going. And I felt I was getting going too, you know. They are yelling at you. Did you, did you feel safe? I felt safe, but I felt like some days it was really hard mentally. Like, you had to get into a particular headspace. And you knew if you said anything one little twig wrong that it would suddenly be an attack at. And so for me, I'd be even going to very high profile role, fighting for a price on pollution, really fighting for climate action, which was actually my job. I found it extremely stressful. And people, maybe I didn't tell people this, but I actually really did not like question period. I really didn't. And I gave as good as I got, probably by the end. And I didn't even love that. But I felt like I had to be seen as fighting because I was fighting. I was fighting for the planet. And so it was, it was not fun. And then there are under the comments, narkey remarks. I mean, I was called, I was even called by a colleague, climate barbie. And then, you know, I mean, that was already a bit out there. But suddenly, that's when I got really furious. I was like, OK, a colleague in the House of Commons is actually trying to make fun of me and diminish me really to diminish my message. Because I would, you know, not be credible, you know, spokesperson for what we're doing. This colleague was conservative MP Jerry Ritz. He replied to an article on Twitter. Here's a clip from CTV News. This video from the United Nations caught on the heels of a political firestorm triggered by a tweet from conservative MP Jerry Ritz, calling McKenna climate barbie. Ritz deleted the tweet in a poll. Well, I mean, no one did anything for a long time because I think that the best advice or people thought this was the best advice was to do nothing. And I was like, oh, for the love of God, you know, I'm a serious person actually just trying to do my job. And I don't want to take on the gender thing too. But one day I was just mad. I was with my ministerial team because I was in New York at a UN meeting on climate. And it was a long day. And I came home and I just said, I came back to be in the hotel lobby. And I just said, sorry, guys, I'm just going to respond. Katherine responded on Twitter. She said, do you use that sexist language about your mother, daughter, sister? We need more women in politics. Your sexist comments won't stop us. And I just called him out. But it was actually probably even, it wasn't really just about me. It was about what I saw in the House of Commons. It was the way I saw women treated on social media. And it was also because I had, you know, I have kids. And I also want women to get into politics. And if we don't, if we let these things slide, then you think, oh, it's all okay. 20 minutes later, Jerry Ritz deleted his tweet and apologized, saying that the word Barbie was not reflective of Katherine McKenna's role as minister. The party did come round. And I think, you know, that anyway, the opposition, the member to sort of apologize. You know, but it didn't stop. It didn't stop because it hadn't started with Jerry Ritz's tweet. The phrase climate Barbie was already being used. In fact, it led to this heated exchange at a press conference. This audio is from CBC News. So you're the rebel media that happens to call me climate Barbie. I certainly hope that you will no longer use that hashtag. Personally, I never have, minister. I just would like a commitment that you will not call me names, that you won't talk about the color of my hair, that you won't make fun of me, that in the reason and I'm asking you not to. to do this is because I have two daughters that there are lots of girls that want to get into politics and it is completely unacceptable that you do this. In the years that followed, the threats continued online and also moved offline. By 2019, at times, Katherine even needed extra security because of the threats to her safety. That's pretty unusual, even for a high-profile cabinet minister. That's the thing that really made that really was bad for my kids. When it gets to become security issues, or I'm walking my son to school, and it's the first time I've been able to walk into school for a very long time because we just come out of a hotly contested election which I hated every single day. I hated it. I found it very stressful because I was like, we have to win or we're going to lose a price on pollution. We're actually, I really felt personally responsible. Anyway, I got a call while I was walking into school saying that someone had written the C word on my campaign office. Early this morning, staff at Ottawa Center and P. Katherine McKenna's office discovered a vulgar word which we've blurred, scrolled across a large image of McKenna's face on the front window of her campaign office. That was from CBC News. What happened to Katherine is sadly all too common. Women in politics have always faced harassment. Now, with so much of the political conversation online, the volume and reach of toxic attacks that target women leaders is unprecedented. And so I would say, you know, you could probably talk to almost any parliamentarian right now and they've had incidents with respect to their security. But certainly if you're a high profile politician, you happen to be a woman, you happen to be LGBTQ+, you happen to be indigenous, you happen to be a visible minority. I can almost guarantee that you've had many more problems on social media, but often in real life, too. At the Samara Center, we've been examining how toxicity in the political conversation online is a barrier to civic engagement. In our SAMBOT project, we use machine learning to measure toxicity received by candidates on Twitter during Canadian elections. In the 2021 federal election, we monitored over two and a half million tweets, tweets received by about 300 candidates, and found approximately 140,000 tweets with sexually explicit content. Most of this was misogynistic, personal and largely directed at just 88 candidates who were women. On average, the candidates we tracked received a toxic tweet every seven seconds. Imagine trying to do a high-stress job with that volume of hate. You can find links to our SAMBOT work in this episode's show notes. Catherine thinks the solutions to this toxicity should come from both inside and beyond the House of Commons. I think that we have to stop looking at the House of Commons like it's totally different from some other place. The protections in place have to be there. The normal workplace practices should be there. I don't actually think it's really that hard. People get kind of stuck because they really think that House of Commons is very particular. I don't think you get a pass on that anymore. I think that will be better for it. I think we need to hold politicians responsible and to be honest, I think there should be a much higher standard in the code of conduct. Parliamentary privilege seems to be this thing that people throw around like you can do anything. I'm sorry, that's not what it's about. Catherine here is talking about parliamentary privilege, a constitutional convention meant to protect MPs and the institution of Parliament. Among other things, it gives MPs the right to free speech in the House and freedom from prosecution. This makes MPs free to criticize, and it's an important part of keeping the House democratic. There are your privileges as members to say things, but it doesn't mean you're attacking your colleagues. When you attack them because of social media, then it's amplified. I have a lecture that I give to young liberals and others about what's OK in politics. I feel a personal obligation to speak up because I do think it can be better and it has to be better because the root we're going down is not great. I do think social media companies have a lot to answer to. It's easy for politicians, so we say it's not me. I know I got into this as much as anyone else. I felt like suddenly I was shouting in the House of Commons and sometimes it was OK. It's OK to be mad about climate change and inaction. But sometimes you just get part of this and I think we can hold ourselves to higher standards. We can professionalize, by the way, our HR policies. We can expect more politics because then Canadians will believe in us more and ultimately more importantly, believe more in politics. I want people everyone to want to vote. I don't care who they vote for. You got to earn the vote. By the way, you learn that in politics or in every vote, but I want people to want to vote because they believe in Canada. They believe in our institutions. They believe in democracy. This is a midroll ad, so you might be expecting us to sell you a mattress or sell my counting software. Well, listen, we wish you good sleep and fiscal organization, but no, we're not going to sell you anything. This minute is for us, you and me. I'm Hannah, one of the producers of this show, and we want to tell you why we made this podcast. See the Samara Center for Democracy is on a mission to secure a resilient democracy with an engaged public and responsive institutions. What does that mean? Well, the Samara Center wants to make it easier for you to talk about Canada's democracy and participate in it. So, talk to us. Tell us why you're listening to this show. It's simple to do. I know you've got your phone in your hand right now. Post about Humans of the House and Tagus on Instagram and Twitter. Select the Samara Center. That's @thesam, A-R-A-C-E-N-T-R-E. We know why we're doing this work. Tell us why you're listening. #HumansOfTheHouse. Former Conservative MP for Milton Lisa Raid is also no stranger to the scrutiny that comes with being elected and stepping right into a high-profile cabinet position. But she had a far different experience of the House from many others. Can you talk about the work environment in the House of Commons? What did you think of it when you first arrived? I still think it was the best place I worked at. I know that others are going to disagree with me. But when you're paid equal to everybody else in the joint and everybody knows you're paid equal, you have equal power. And that's empowering. So my say is as important as you're say, because you don't make more money than me. You don't worth more than I am. Cabinet ministers may be. But that's the reality of it. Every voice was equal. Everybody was respected because you went through a nomination process and you went through an election and you brought the seat and you were supported for that. Even across the aisle, I still have great relationships with some of the former Liberal MPs and some of the former NDP MPs because we're all going through it together. And you bond and you laugh at the same kind of things and you look for the moments of levity. But the reality is, is that the House of Commons is based on conflict. And that's okay too. You've got a fight for what you believe is right and what you believe should happen and make the best persuasive arguments that you can internally to caucus as well as on the floor of the of parliament. My downfall was the press. I could never figure out how to deal with the press. I made the mistake so many times assuming that they were my friends and they're not. They're in business. Their business is to get sound bites. Their businesses to get stories and to get to what they think is the bottom of things. But really isn't the bottom of anything. It's just understanding the secrets that everybody seems to be keeping in Ottawa. And that would have been the part that I didn't get guidance on. I didn't get clear guidance on it. And I still think conservative struggle to understand how to have a good relationship with media. Can you tell us about the backlash you faced early on dealing with the medical isotopes crisis? There's a lot to impact there. And I really honestly don't like thinking about it or talking about it because it was extremely painful. It broke up my marriage. My marriage is already on a thread. But certainly the emotion and the stress around that time wasn't helpful to me being able to figure out how to repair that part of my life when I was drowning in my life. Hello, I'm Peter van Dosen and this is Primetime Politics on CPAC, the Cable Public Affairs Channel. The shutdown of the chalk river nuclear reactor that produces isotopes is depriving patients in Ontario of a much needed diagnostic tool or cancer and other illnesses. By the end of the week, Ontario Medical Facilities will have only 10% of the isotopes they need. And the situation will be-- So basically what happened is this. Canada had decided that it wanted to be the world's provider of medical isotopes. Medical isotopes are important in cancer treatments. They're important in diagnostics with respect to you name it. Brain tumors or digestive issues. And they're made when you take a piece of material, whatever element it is, and you expose it to radiation within a nuclear core. And then you produce medical isotopes. Now, there are five sites around the world that had these plants. And in 2008, 2009, all of these plants were starting to go into disrepair, or they were being shut down. And Canada had decided it was decommissioning. It's large reactor because it had come up with a new technology that it was going to be able to corner the market on, called maples. Well, after billions of dollars, maples didn't work. The science didn't work. And when they turned the machine on, they weren't sure whether or not they could control the reactions. And as a result, it was a danger of a nuclear meltdown for these reactors. So, I mothballed the whole thing and scrapped the program. And that left us with a reactor, an old reactor, to serve the world. And it couldn't keep up. So, we had lots of controversy about whether or not medical isotopes were going to be available to people. And that's a terrible thing. Terrible because these isotopes are so vital for cancer treatments. In December, or I guess it was in January, December, I had traveled with my press secretary to do a tour in Vancouver. And for some reason, she had her tape recorder running. For some reason, she left her tape recorder in the house of a reporter for the Halifax Herald. For some reason, he listened to the tape recording. And on it, she had asked me how I felt about the medical isotope situation and my response was, I think we can handle it because the press likes these issues. And this may be helpful for my career, because I'll be seen as somebody who can handle big issues. And that will put me in a better light with a prime minister. And that was, it was just played for everyone at all the time. And as a result, I was painted as a craven, horrible human being who thought cancer was sexy. And I was judged accordingly. The prime minister is once again standing by his embattled minister of natural resources, Lisa Rape. The opposition parties are demanding that Rape resign or be fired after comments she made on tape made five months ago describing the shortage of medical isotopes as sexy and looking to get political credit for herself or resolving it. That's from CPAC in 2009. And then the reactor that we were holding onto cracked. And there are no medical isotopes. So the efforts went into trying to keep a very large organization like AECL on track. And then the final straw of it all had to do with the fact that when I went to do some public discussion on how we were going to restructure atomic energy candidate-limited, one of my staffers left behind a briefing binder that contained secret documents. So all of that was swirling around within a short period of time. And as a result, I personally became radioactive. And the prime minister took me in. And he said, we need to take the target off your back. You've been targeted for too long. And we're going to move you out. You're going to go to another portfolio. But along the way, I mean, he wanted to fire me for leaving the binder behind. And he certainly wasn't happy with the way things went down on the tape. And he never looked at me the same again. I went from being somebody that he appreciated bringing business skills into the cabinet. Somebody that was a problem to manage. Thank you for breaking that down for me. Can you share what it was like to be in the public eye that way and how you navigated all of that pressure and stress? I didn't. I didn't navigate it at all. I'm going to forever think about it. I can actually look upon it now and wonder if there was a bit of misogyny involved in it, to be honest. How it was such a game to hunt me down and make me look as worse as possible. And it had at the allure. I was one of the top recruits into cabinet. I was young. I was smart. I could speak well. And nothing like taking down a cabinet minister to make the press gallery feel good about itself. And it definitely-- it hurt. And it's completely changed my life. Honestly, completely changed my life. I'm a very different person now than I was before. Some of it's good. Some of it's bad. The good side is I have a lot of empathy. I have-- I'm a lot wiser. I have better judgment. I no longer seek out the spotlight at all. And that can be a bad side too, because in a world where sales is important for promotion, I don't self-promote. And I still struggle with talking about my accomplishments because I'm tainted by the fact that when I did get caught talking about it, I was seen to be a bad woman. Do you think being a bad woman is worse than being a bad man? For sure it is. See, I didn't say a bad MP. I didn't say a bad cabinet minister. I said a bad woman. I think it had a lot to do with it. And I look at Helena Jurgis had a temper tantrum. She's a bad woman. Bevota, $8 glass of orange juice. She's a bad woman. Bevota's glass of orange juice actually cost $16. The minister of international cooperation was the target of angry criticism today over some extravagant travel expenses. Bevota was booked at a five-star hotel for a recent business trip, but demanded to be moved to a swankier one. It all added up to big bucks. And guess who got the bill? That's the CBC in 2012. And it's not just-- it wasn't Harper saying we're bad women. It was the press saying we're bad women. And he stepped by us. He kept us in cabinet. Bev eventually succumbed to the pressure and left. But if you compare it to some of the-- how shall we say it-- misadventures of this liberal cabinet and the men in it? Yeah, well. Was this ever something that you talked about with your peers? I want to use the word double or phrase double standard, but it doesn't really capture it. No. No, you just live it because then you're whining. I think this is-- honestly, I think this is the most that I've ever-- this is the deepest I've ever talked about it. I didn't want to go in public with my kids. Yeah. The other time-- so when I was minister of labor-- sorry, that's emotional for me because I've talked about myself and I'm not good at that-- when I was minister of labor. And I was involved in some really heated union stuff. I didn't mind being called names then, because I was doing what I thought was right. And it was advocating on behalf of the position of what was best for the nation and best for the government. And I did get death threats. And we did get a cost to that, a hockey game with my kids. But that was all manageable. And that kind of just rolls off my back. The other stuff, though, that went to my personal integrity, I found really, really hard, really hard. And that's the hardest part of being an MP. Did you feel that you had any support or protection? No, not at all. And what about social media during this time as well? There was none. Can you imagine if there was social media? That's one of the benefits of '08, '09, is that there was no Twitter at the time. It was bad enough. We want our politicians to meet a high standard of integrity. Journalists play a vital role in our democracy by holding our politicians to account. And social media, at its best, is also an accountability tool. But where is the line between critique and personal attack? And what does an MP need to navigate this space? Age does bring perspective, and it does bring wisdom. And I'm far wiser now than I was. If I knew, then what I know now, I wouldn't have got myself into that trouble. Maybe, maybe not, but my hubris was exposed. And as a result, I've been overcompensating and not having any hubris at all. Maybe that's why everybody likes me. Because I say, yes to everything, I want to please people. And it has a lot to do with the fact that for a number of years, I was painted as this terrible character. Could I have leaned on people a little bit more perhaps? But I also didn't have people reach out to me, say it's going to be OK. And that's the deal, right? It's gotta be, it's hard for people to ask for help when they're drowning. You need somebody to come in and save them. So I think the onus needs to be on people to say, if you see one of your colleagues having a problem, you go and help them. Yeah. That's the kind of help that I would like to see. However, was it worth it being an MP and stuff? I have a great job. Yes, everything was worth it. Everything that I did since then, but I had to work hard. I had to work really, really hard and become a different person in order to get a reputation back again. So we've heard about MP's mental health and stress levels. The work-life balance or lack thereof, about getting harassed everywhere from Twitter to question period. Of course, no two MPs have the same experience. Party leaders and ministers are put under the microscope more than your typical MP, and women in the house can face a far different tone of debate for men. One thing, the former MPs we surveyed agreed on. Whether or not they experienced it firsthand, this house was built for a different time. It was created 150 years ago, in a society where women and minorities couldn't vote. Where owning property was sometimes the deciding factor on whether you could cast a ballot. MP pay was so low, the only people who could afford to serve and even travel to Ottawa were people with deep pockets. You can imagine what kind of representation that led to. While a lot has changed since then, Parliament Hill's workplace policies for MPs are still lagging behind. And that can have consequences. Kennedy Stewart is the former mayor of Vancouver and before that was the MP for Burnaby South. Lots of people focus on the heckling and stuff, but I think there's much bigger problems than that. The House of Commons is like the worst place I've ever worked in terms of an environment. You know, I was coming from a university culture. Yeah. The universities had come through a period of where kind of sexual harassment was a normal thing, but not any longer. And so there were so many policies and oversights to protect students, especially women, from kind of predatory behavior that I was just shocked at how none of those things were in place in Ottawa. So, I mean, while I was in Parliament, two of my colleagues were sexually assaulted by two other colleagues, which is a very well-documented case, but it was two women within the New Democratic Caucus that were sexually assaulted by members from another caucus. I did know one of the victims of this and it affected, well, both actually owning both victims very well and just the devastating impact on their lives. And especially with the young female MPs, I would often see predatory behavior by older male MPs and many of us would intervene, but it seemed to be almost completely unregulated and that led to some really horrific behavior that I don't know if it's been addressed even to today, but it definitely wasn't a safe workspace, I didn't think. Wow. You know, that you allow this to happen is, it should undermine Kitty and Faith and the institutions that we have. Yeah. So it is very serious, but in the towing and frowing of regular parliamentary business on budgets and foreign affairs and all the other things, it doesn't seem to ever be prioritized until there's a huge problem. And then, you know, there's some lip service and then you just go back to having the same old thing. Some of the MPs we spoke to saw a few key changes over time. So over the course of your time in the House of Commons, did you observe a change in the workplace culture? Yeah, in a positive way. I mean, I believe what I can say is that there is a far less tolerance for impropriety when it comes to socializing. I don't want to say sexual harassment, because it's not necessarily sexual harassment. Sometimes it's welcome. It's a weird atmosphere. And I just find it really tough when I see male colleagues stating female staffers. Yeah. But it happens. And sometimes they get married. Sometimes they don't. But I see a lot less of that now. Former MP for Frederick 10, Matt DeCorsi, remembers how parliament first responded to the MeToo movement. We also, as parliamentarians, had to really examine a lot of different elements of our behavior when MeToo struck. And we were not immune to it. And the women in caucus were really, really good about welcoming us into the conversation about how they were feeling. And we had educational and professional development seminars that we were required to go to, but also felt empowered to go to and felt good coming out of, right? And I'll simplify it by saying we learned a lot and realized that most of our colleagues were not to get us. They just wanted us to be better educated about some of the overt and maybe passive ways in which different gender imbalances can cause problems. So those are a number of things that I watched workplace culture shift because of throughout my time, both before, during and after being in office. Future research from the Samara Center will dig deeper on this. Remember the online hate we talked about earlier? Hard to forget, isn't it? One thing that struck me listening to our former MPs was the tension between how challenging their work environment was and how committed they were to public service. They really believe in our democracy and they're passionate about keeping us engaged with it. We need diverse leaders and problem solvers to tackle the huge problems we're facing in Canada. You know the list. So in a workplace like the House of Commons, who is supported? Who gets to learn on the job? And who has given the tools to thrive? In our next episode, we'll explore polarization, hyper partisanship, and power. Most of them said politics is going to change you, Selina. You're not going to come out the same way that you came in. Most of the hostility towards me was within my own party. Join us as we ask, who is an MP's real boss? Their party? Canadians? Themselves? Are you here for the party or are you here for the people? Big thanks to all the former MPs and thank you for listening to Humans of the House. This podcast is produced by media girlfriends for the Samara Center for Democracy. I'm Sabrina Dellen, executive director of the Samara Center. Executive producers of this podcast are Hannah Sung and Garvey Abaley. Associate producer is Elena Hudgens-Lyle. Research is by manager Dr. Beatrice Wayne and coordinator Vijay Kumar of the Samara Center. And our sound engineer is Gabby Clark. Theme music was composed by Project Whatever. A special thanks goes to the Canadian Association of former parliamentarians, Charlie Feldman, Bill Young, Michael McMillan, Ruth Austrauer, Jennifer Jen Blanco, and the Navaduncan. This episode included clips from CTV News, CBC News, and CPAC. We are also grateful for funding from Heritage Canada and Rosamond Ivy. The Samara Center for Democracy is a nonpartisan registered charity. Our mission is to realize a resilient democracy with an engaged public and responsive institutions. To support our work, visit SamaraCenter.ca and click donate. This podcast is part of the MP exit interview project. To learn more about this work and other research, visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the Samara Center. If you, like us, care about the human side of politics, help spread the word about our show. Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Tell your friends, and if you teach, share this show with your class. Thank you for listening. Hi, I'm Sabrina Dellen, CEO of the Samara Center for Democracy. I know Canada's democracy is under threat, and believe me, I understand the stakes, but I also know something else to be true. When we focus on how we're connected, we find the power to act, to strengthen what's working, and to fix what's not. This is what's behind the Samara Center's new podcast. It's called Group Chat and it's where we bring people together to make sense of what's happening in our democracy. I think some of my friends said, "Okay, we need to figure out a way to, if we can't physically lay hands on her, then we have to find a way to virtually lay hands on her." It's actually quite exciting and of course there's going to be conflicts and competing interests, but I think it's like a really good opportunity to start establishing what does a country of the future look like. My response to the nihilism and cynicism is like, "Just do something. Do something. Do anything. Do a thing that you think might be helpful in your community. Just do it." I've just added you to Group Chat, a new podcast from the Samara Center for Democracy. Listen wherever you get your podcasts and make sure to follow us so you know when our first episode drops this summer. (gentle music)