Interview (with Sean Conway, Jacques Baril, John Reynolds and Lorne Nystrom, long-time members).

• Author: Levy, Gary

Due to the high turnover rate in Canadian elections, very few legislators who were in office in 1978, when the Canadian Parliamentary Review was founded, are still in office today. To mark the 20th anniversary of the Review we have interviewed four long-time members. Sean Conway, first elected in 1975, is the Liberal member for Renfrew North in the Ontario Legislative Assembly. Lorne Nystrom, first elected in 1968, is the New Democratic Party member for Qu' Appelle in the House of Commons. Jacques Baril, first elected in 1976, is the Parti Quebecois member of the Quebec National Assembly for Arthabaska. John Reynolds is the Reform Party member of Parliament for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1972 as a Progressive Conservative and later represented West Vancouver-Howe Sound in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly. The interviews were conducted in February and March 1998 by Gary Levy. The interview with Jacques Baril was done in collaboration with Christian Comeau.

Why did you go into politics and what were some of your initial impressions of Parliament?

Sean Conway: I grew up in an atmosphere where active politics was part of the family tradition. My grandfather, Thomas Patrick Murray represented South Renfrew in the Ontario Legislative Assembly from 1929 to 1945. It was great fun making the rounds with him. I also worked on the campaign for our local member of Parliament, Len Hopkins. In 1975, while a graduate student at Queen's University, a family friend suggested I seek the Liberal nomination. The sitting member, a Conservative, had retired. The Government of William Davis was struggling. The nomination meeting was held in May but if it had been two months earlier, during final exams, I never would have been a candidate. But the timing was right, and a few months later, I found myself in Toronto as an MLA. When you are 24 years old you do not give such matters as much thought as you would ten years later.

I was probably better prepared than most people my age as I had heard numerous stories from my grandfather. He was 95 years old by the time I was elected but he still regaled visitors with stories about Mitchell Hepburn, George Drew, Howard Fergusson and other famous members of the legislature. My first impression was very humbling. Every party had a number of very experienced and talented people. Bob Nixon was our leader, Robert Welch and Darcy McKeough were very impressive members of the government. The NDP had Donald C. MacDonald and James Renwick. One of my earliest recollections was listening to a speech by Stephen Lewis of the NDP. He was a great orator and listening to him made me realize that I still had a long way to go before I could compare with any of these political heavyweights.

Jacques Baril: I went into politics for two reasons. I wanted to defend the agricultural class because I am a dairy farmer and was active in the Union des producteurs agricoles. In the early 1970s, there were tremendous problems in the agricultural sector. People were digging holes to bury their calves, eggs, milk and so on. The second reason is a simple one. I am a sovereigntist by conviction and I want Quebec to achieve sovereignty. I had no idea how the legislature worked, or could work. I learned on the job.

Lorne Nystrom: In the late 1960s I was president of the Youth Wing of the NDP. I had always been interested in politics and planned to run for office some day. A federal election was called for June 1968. I was 21 years old at the time and Yorkton Melville was generally considered to be a Tory seat. I ran for the NDP nomination against three other candidates. We had a huge turnout at the nomination meeting mainly because Laurier Lapierre was our guest Speaker. He had recently been fired as host of the CBC programme This Hour has Seven Days and was the NDP candidate in a Montreal riding. I won the nomination on the 3rd ballot. The election was dominated by "Trudeaumania" and returned a Liberal majority government. But in my riding the vote split three ways and I won with 38% of the popular vote.

I did not have many preconceived ideas. I had only been to Ottawa once, in 1967 when I hitch-hiked across Canada on my way to Expo 67. I stopped briefly in Ottawa to take a picture in front of the Peace Tower. My initial impression of Parliament is that it was a large and rather slow moving institution. There was not much discussion or interest in ideas that were current among my generation. I found it a very conservative place and even found many in my own party to be more conservative and traditional than I had imagined.

John Reynolds: In 1968, the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau were elected with quite a large mandate. However, their popularity among small businessmen, particularly in western Canada, did not last. In 1971, I was at a Christmas party and started talking politics with Tom Goode, the Liberal MP for Burnaby-Richmond. A number of us expressed concerns about the direction the government was taking and afterwards the question arose as to what we could do about it. One option is always to get involved. I was already a member of the Progressive Conservative Party and I decided to see what I could do to help build up party membership for the next election.

As nomination day drew closer, my name was mentioned more and more as a possible candidate. I was 29 years old and did not expect to win the nomination let alone the riding, however, I decided to let my name stand. At the very least I thought it would be great experience to learn how the democratic process really works. When the votes were counted in the 1972 election I won by a small margin, about 1,500 votes. As often happens in British Columbia, the vote split three ways and I came up the middle between the Liberals and the NDP. Two years later I was reelected with the biggest majority in British Columbia.

In comparing the Chamber then and now, do you see any major differences? In question period for example.

John Reynolds: For one thing the Speaker seemed to have more authority in those days, at least as far as recognising members during question period was concerned. The parties gave him the names of the first 3 individuals they wanted recognised but after that he was on his own to recognise whoever he wanted.

Today it is more scripted by the parties although I do like the 35 seconds allowed for questions and answers as it allows more members to get their questions in. It seems to me that the Speaker got more respect in the early 1970s, perhaps because there was no television in those days. Whatever the reason, when the Speaker stood up and called for order you would have quiet within a few seconds.

The media has become much more important than it used to be. There were fewer scrums 30 years ago. Now all the parties have hired media people and they have tremendous influence over everything done in Ottawa. One thing that has not changed is the difficulty of getting western Canadian issues on the agenda. In the 1970s we used to have a meeting regarding question period every day. I remember that I could not convince my colleagues that we should be raising questions about a grain strike in western Canada. Not until the strike made the headlines in the Globe and Mail did we get it on the agenda. This has changed somewhat today with a western based party like Reform. But, we still have to fight with some of our party staff who are more oriented toward problems in central Canada.

Lorne Nystrom: Question period is definitely more rapid and faster moving today. There was no fixed time limit and you could have points of order or questions of privilege during question period. That is not allowed today.

I guess the biggest difference was that we did not have television in the House. It was introduced in 1977 and had an immediate effect on the way people dressed and behaved. I remember one MP, Bob Brisco, who liked to wear an ultra suede suit. He sat in the back benches and his suit was exactly the colour of the curtains in the House. When he rose to speak all you saw on TV was a round face peering out of the curtains. He never wore that suit again in the House. Behaviour also changed. There were night sessions in those days and it was not unknown for people to have too much to drink. Television discouraged such behaviour and eventually night sittings were eliminated completely.

Television also turned the House into more of a theatre and theatrical skills came in very handy. It also made Parliament more accessible and open to the people. On balance, I think television had a positive effect. There are only a handful of members in the House who remember what it was like before television.

Sean Conway: When I arrived at Queen's Park, there had been a Conservative Government in Ontario for 32 consecutive years. The political culture was that of single party dominance. The opposition, in their heart, never really imagined they would one day be the government. As a result...