Goodbye, Parliament: departing MPs reflect on their time on the Hill

It's never easy knowing when it's time to go. 

"I want to leave when people are still saying, 'please don't go,' because they will eventually stop saying that and you don't want to be there when that happens. Leave before it's too late," outgoing Conservative MP Laurie Hawn tells The House.

Hawn and NDP MP Jean Crowder are two of the 50 — and counting — MPs who will not be running for re-election this fall. Now that Parliament has risen for the summer, Hawn and Crowder are saying goodbye to the House that has become a home for them over the years.

But it hasn't always been a peaceful home. Both MPs agreed there's a "combative" culture and environment in the House that they'd like to see change.

"I find it very challenging and I think it has deteriorated," Crowder says. "I think sometimes it's far too personal. We turn Canadians off with the way we speak to each other and the way we behave."

"I don't encourage people to bring their schoolchildren into Question Period because I think it's shocking the way we talk to each other," adds the MP for Nanaimo - Cowichan since 2004.

Hawn says that's one thing he won't miss about politics when he returns home to Edmonton. 

"I won't miss the rowdiness for no reason in the House. I've had it with that stuff — just, shut up," he says of heckling MPs.

When it comes to regrets, Crowder has a few — mainly, "that we couldn't find a way to work more civilly with each other," she says. 

Hawn thinks regrets are inevitable, and not necessarily a bad thing. 

"If you don't leave with some regrets, you probably weren't putting the bar high enough to begin with," he says. 

The two outgoing MPs put aside their party politics, drop the talking points, and reflect back on their careers in politics — the good, the bad and the ugly — this week on The House.