MPs speak out in Tragedy in the Commons

Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan, founders of the non-partisan think tank Samara, talk to Jian about their book Tragedy in the Commons. They conducted 80 exit interviews with former MPs of all political stripes, and discovered some commonalities about the way politics works -- and serves the public -- in Canada.

The best-selling authors found that every single former Member of Parliament they spoke with had left Parliament Hill feeling confused, powerless, angry and very dismayed by the democratic system.

Exit interviews, it turned out, are not commonly conducted in Parliament, so Loat and MacMillan offered an opportunity for frank discussion. Thirty-five interviewees were former cabinet ministers.

"What the MPs talked to us about was not entirely what we thought," MacMillan said, adding that the politicians spent time "describing concerns that they had with their own political parties, and specifically with the leadership in their own political parties."

The responses were "overwhelmingly consistent" across all parties, and regardless of geography: Concerns about the nomination process, how politicians were induced to behave or "perform" at question period, and a dispossession of their own personal power once they arrived in Ottawa.

"A couple things surprised me," Loat said. "The consistency -- that shocked me."

But the second surprise "was the degree to which they blamed their own political parties for things," as opposed to pointing fingers across the aisle.

"If MPs are feeling so uncomfortable in political parties, should we be surprised that so few citizens are involved in those organizations anymore?" Loat said.