Rob Merrifield is a 46-year-old Whitecourt, Alta., farmer with a dream of making Canada a better place.
For political partisans, elections are a time of optimism when a brave new world is just an election away.
Like several thousand other Canadians, he will be standing for election Nov. 27, asking voters to send him to Ottawa. He wants to be the MP for Yellowhead constituency.
The Canadian Alliance is his vehicle.
Others chose other political vehicles – the Liberals, New Democrats, Progressive Conservatives, Green Party, Canadian Action Party and a plethora of minor options from Communists to independent candidacy.
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To a woman or man, they are optimistic they can make a change.
“I’ve always been involved in community work and service and I think becoming an MP would be another step in that,” Merrifield says.
“I really believe our policies of grassroots governance and change will make a difference.”
Contrast that with the views of a politician who is leaving the scene.
In 1993, southern Saskatchewan mining consultant, prospector and world-traveling geologist Lee Morrison came to Ottawa as a 61-year-old Reform MP, undoubtedly convinced that federal Parliament needed a good injection of the common conservative sense that the new western party was espousing.
For the next seven years, he sat as an opposition MP, increasingly angry about the leadership of his own party, the powerlessness of backbench MPs and the partisan, scripted “debates” in the House of Commons.
He concluded there was no hope for real change, even with a new Canadian Alliance party and a new leader he supported.
On the last day of the last Parliament, Morrison gave a bitter and cynical valedictory address denouncing the institution in which he had served.
Final political speeches usually are sentimental affairs, filled with fond memories of colleagues and moments shared.
Morrison, ever the straight shooter, broke the rules.
“I will not regret leaving what has become, under Liberal management, a totally dysfunctional institution,” he said.
He mocked the “thrill” of delivering speeches to a House of Commons devoid of MPs to listen. He disdained long hours on parliamentary committees that had no power.
He denounced Liberal backbenchers and hecklers who “do not understand the difference between intelligent heckling and boorish noise.”
And he called them childish. “I do not know what I will be doing for the next few years but whatever it is, I expect that I will be dealing with grown-ups.”
And whatever it is, “I am sure it will be more useful than this past seven years that I have spent in this rubber stamp Parliament. I will not look back.”
It was a strong indictment of Parliament, a tired and resigned condemnation of seven years of his life.
For watchers of Parliament, MPs like Lee Morrison actually make a difference by puncturing holes in the official ideologies. He did not see it that way.
Will the new, optimistic MPs hit the same wall and find hope turning into cynicism? Will party discipline, majority power and arcane rules destroy their dreams of making a difference as a tribune for their voters?
For the sake of the country and its political structures, let’s hope not.