Exiting MPs share their views on the state of politics: ‘Toxic atmosphere’

Exiting MPs from all three major national parties agree that the current state of politics has grown increasingly adversarial, but the tone of debate can still be calmed.

The next election isn’t scheduled until 2025, but several MPs have already said they do not plan on seeking another term. Prior to the House of Commons rising for the winter break, Global News spoke with some of them about how politics has changed since they were first elected, and their concerns for younger parliamentarians.

Twenty-six-year parliamentary veteran Carolyn Bennett says she wishes that current and future members of Parliament could share her experience from the late 1990s when she first became an MP.

“I really feel badly that people haven’t had that experience and that things have become so partisan,” the now-former Liberal MP, who has retired from politics, said in an interview from her Parliament Hill office at the beginning of December.

“Even during elections, where you may be really nice to one another in person, but then the ‘keyboard warrior’ comes out at night, and it ends up so partisan and so awful.”

In a chamber where political divides are often laid bare during question period and in social media posts, there’s consensus among exiting MPs from the three main national parties that the current tone is “toxic.”

“I don’t think we’re stuck forever in this current toxic atmosphere, but I would call the current atmosphere toxic,” said B.C. NDP MP Randall Garrison earlier this month. In April, he said he wouldn’t be seeking re-election.

“The political environment today in Ottawa is so adversarial. It’s almost like it’s about achieving political partisanship versus actually doing what is right for so many Canadians,” Alberta Conservative MP Ron Liepert told Global News.

Liepert, who announced in February that he won’t be seeking re-election, has been involved in politics since the 1970s, first as a journalist covering the Alberta legislature and eventually joining the provincial government as Premier Peter Lougheed’s press secretary.