Transitions - The Short Goodbye

Losing an election is a bit like detox. The residue of partisanship, enmities, pressures and exhaustion slowly give way to a sense of liberation. What takes a long time for some became almost instant for me. One of the best things about a truly liberal spirit is its reticence to place people in categories. And yet that is precisely what politics does so well. As a politician, people judge you by your colour - kind of like a twisted form of political racism, and you learn to do the same. Where your community once viewed you as a complete being, you are suddenly judged by the liabilities of your party.  Whether you're blue, red, orange or green, you are instantly categorized for your political preferences.Yesterday I went for a haircut in a mall and people were remarkably kind. Suddenly I was the food bank guy again, the fellow who works for Africa, and the father of seven remarkable kids. Losing has its benefits and being accepted as human again is one of them.A defeated MP suddenly confronts a phalanx of problems that have to be solved in a hurry. The immediate stuff is all about cleaning out your two offices, saying goodbye to your staff, compiling everything you've accumulated with taxpayer funds (computers, office furniture, etc.) and sending it back to Parliament. There's no time to rest because you're given 30 days to clean out your constituency office and 17 days for the Ottawa one.For most defeated MPs there are also financial adjustments, some of them severe. Politics pays well, in part because you work harder and are away from your family more than you ever will at any other stage of your life. Some have the benefit of having served long enough to acquire a pension, which they can receive when reaching their sixties. A pension begins when you've served six years but it isn't very much until you've served a lot longer. The career you put aside for politics in most cases isn't there when you lose - the opportunities are gone. If you were a minister, you'll land on your feet somewhere. But most MPs who lose have to find some way to cobble a financial existence together when it's over. It's hard because you left behind the accumulated benefits of a career when you went to Ottawa.For me the adjustment will be more extreme. Serving almost five years means no pension for me. I have suddenly entered a life where I'll make one-quarter of what I did just last week. And with three young kids at home moving inevitably towards university, there will be challenges.Then again, there is that liberation thing. I'll be free to spend every day with the family. The total of messages of condolence to me has now reached over one thousand and in some many there is the concept that when one door closes another opens up. That is inevitably true. But for me my life-doors never shut - they stand ready to be walked through again. The very day after I lost, my wife and I had food bank meetings all day, culminating in an evening board meeting. I had stayed on as volunteer executive director for my entire political tenure, but now I can give it more time again. A deeper community involvement beckons and losing my election has made that all possible.It's likely that most who lost earlier this week are experiencing difficult withdrawal, but I've been lucky enough to hit the ground running. I have so much I want to do, including helping to rebuild the party, and I'm eager to get at it. And if I can't afford the things I used to do for the family, there's still the reality that community involvement and international development takes commitment not riches, and I feel I've got plenty of that left.Now in my 61st year, I've had a remarkable life, with exciting challenges ahead. But for a brief time - 5 years - I was graced by Parliament. I never saw that place as anything else but hallowed ground, and I got to function there for a bit. I met presidents, UN Secretaries General, and other dignitaries. Better, however, was the ability to work with struggling aboriginal women's groups, poverty and development activists, religious groups, teachers, business entrepreneurs, scientists, environmentalists, and those desiring political reform - these were the cream of the crop to me and they have my abiding respect. Someday one of my grandkids will ask what it was like sitting in the House and I'll reply that it was perhaps the most dignified thing I ever did because I touched history, was ennobled, and was able to help others.But the truth is I was never comfortable in politics. I have the instincts of a public servant, not those of a partisan politician. The House no longer functions well and a government found in contempt of that place now has a majority mandate - things are deeply dysfunctional, both in the House and among the citizenry. Yet I am now free. I wish the person who defeated me every success, I really do, but I'll be too busy walking the kids to school with my wife, assisting Africans and being bettered by them, and fighting for women's rights, the environment and against poverty to really notice. But something about Parliament - its ideals, opportunities, history and dignity - will stay with me forever. I was there. I kept my spirit alive in difficult times. I refused to strap on the pads. And above all I refused to abide by just one colour. That's no bad, eh?