Current Liberal House Leader Mark Holland has spent nearly his entire career in politics except for one four-year gap after losing a close race in the 2011 federal election. That loss was so crushing he attempted to take his own life.
Politics
Former MP chats about Cloverdale – Langley City, politics, and his future – Peace Arch News
Welcome to “Cloverdale In Conversation,” a new monthly feature with a local newsmaker.
This month, John Aldag is our guest. The former MP for Cloverdale-Langley City sat down with Malin Jordan at the Rustic Rooster for a coffee and an informal chat about all things politics and personal.
John talks about his time in office, some key issues he’d like to see pushed forward by the current government, and his future.
Malin Jordan: What are some of your first thoughts on your time in office?
John Aldag: I will always remember that first day of sitting in my chair in the House of Commons and feeling really honoured to have been put there. I realized how few people get to sit there and the magnitude of the place—the important decisions that were made there—made me feel humble. And now I’m part of that. That really hit home for me.
Also the fact that I was now the voice for a hundred thousand people from this area.
MJ: What did you enjoy most about it?
JA: The thing I enjoyed the most about (being an MP) was the conversations at [constituent’s] homes. That’ll probably be the thing I miss the most—just going door-to-door. I tried to do that during my four years, just to remain grounded, while I was there. I tried not to advance my personal agenda, but I tried to go forward with the middle ground that I was hearing from people in Cloverdale-Langley City. I would often try to ask people what they worry about—what keeps them up at night. That’s how I sorted out what the real top priority issues were in the riding.
MJ: What will you miss the most?
JA: I’m going to miss some of the camaraderie. It’s a team sport. I made some close personal friendships, not just with the Liberals, but across the parties. It’s a really intense job and not being a part of that anymore, all of a sudden, it’s like, “now what?”
MJ: What are you not going to miss about the job?
JA: I really dislike the hyper-partisan nature of politics. There’s no place like the House of Commons where that really comes out more. It’s sort of the pinnacle of hyper-partisan politics (laughs). And especially question period. I hate question period. I may never watch question period again in my life. I dislike the cheap points [politicians make] for the 30-second soundbites. We’d always laugh, “somebody’s made their fundraising clip with that question.” It’s not about building up the country. So, I’m not going to miss that. I just find it really cheapens what the whole thing’s about.
Ottawa winters. I’m not going to miss those (laughs). And being away from my family for half the year. We’re seeing each other now more than we have in four years. I’m really valuing that right now.
MJ: So family’s important to you?
JA: Yes, family is very important to me. My kids are teenagers. My son graduated from high school [last year]. I have two daughters in grades 9 and 11. They’re already getting into their own thing. So, time is limited with teenagers. I’m glad I have this next period to be around them.
And my wife and I will be able to have date nights again. For the last four years, they have generally been galas and other political events. We haven’t had any real time for ourselves.
I would always hashtag “date night” and my wife would say, “Don’t hashtag date night because it’s not a date,” (laughs).
MJ: Let’s talk a little bit about your former campaign manager, Gunraj Gill. How did that relationship begin? And what do you think Gunraj’s legacy will be?
JA: This is something that hung over me the entire campaign (chokes back tears). Gunraj came to me in 2015 when he was 18 years old and said, “I want to help you win your campaign.” I said, “Okay, you can make some phone calls,” but he said, “No, I actually want to run your campaign.”
So, we sat down, and within about an hour of conversation—he just had this energy, this passion, this vision—I said, “You know what? I’m new to this too. Sure, let’s do it. And let’s do what we think is right for this riding.” And I let Gunraj run with it; and we were elected; and it was amazing.
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| Gunraj Gill |
He came with me to Ottawa for two years. He was my chief of staff and he looked after both the constituency office and the Ottawa office. Then he wanted to return to B.C. to set up his own political consultancy, but we made a deal that he would work on my re-election campaign.
We talked in the spring about what the campaign would look like and we said we’d talk again in the summer. Then we had a meeting near the end of June in Cloverdale.
I was going on a delegation to Luxembourg for the first week of July and Gunraj decided to take a trip to Greece at the same time. He said to me, “You better rest, because when we get back we’re not going to sleep for 12 weeks.”
Two days after I was in Luxembourg, I got a phone call telling me Gunraj had a brain bleed and had been placed in a medically-induced coma…. He died a few days later. It was tough.
But I made a commitment to his family that I would keep him on in name as my campaign manager.
Gunraj was an important part of my life for the last six years. He was 18 when he ran my first campaign and he was 23 when he passed away. His family wanted to honour his memory, so they set up a memorial fund at SFU. That scholarship fund was established in honour of Gunraj and it will support other youth pursuing their political passions at SFU.
(That memorial fund page can be found by visiting give.sfu.ca and searching: Gunraj Gill.)
I see that as Gunraj’s legacy—helping ignite that same passion for politics, at all three levels of government, that Gunraj had, in the next generation of students coming through.
MJ: What issues do you see facing the Cloverdale-Langley City riding that you hope Tamara Jansen supports, or that you hope the current government continues to push forward for this riding?
JA: The platform the Liberals put forward, I think, was the best of all the parties. The electorate in Canada generally agreed with that by electing a minority government. I think there’s many things within that platform that are important to Cloverdale-Langley City. I’m not going to let go of things completely at this point, because I did pour my heart and soul into some things.
One of them is Skytrain to Langley. I’m going to turn to the community for support and try to get a commitment to actually get the funding for SkyTrain all the way to Langley, not just to Fleetwood.
Pharmacare is a big one I heard a lot about. So, I hope the government moves forward with that.
Another issue that I heard from seniors, and one they really liked in the platform, was increasing the old age security by 10 per cent once seniors turn 75-years-old. So I’m going to be pushing to make sure that goes forward.
I was also involved in looking at expanding parental benefits. Right now, the program tends to ignore certain classes of parents for parental leaves and maternity leaves. For example, adoptive parents don’t get the full year off. That’s something we committed to when making those benefits tax free. I’ll be pushing through various channels to make sure that gets implemented through this minority government.
I think the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which was a main piece of federal legislation that deals with toxins in the environment, related to both environmental and human health issues, needs to be updated. The legislation is 20 years old. So, technology has changed. Things like genetically modified organisms are not part of that, but they need to be.
MJ: Sounds like you’re going to be very busy.
JA: Public service has been my life—it’s been an important part of my life for the last six years. I think I can still play a role in making sure things get delivered by this government that I was a part of.
MJ: Other than advocating for some of the issues you just mentioned, what else in store for you in terms of work or service?
JA: I was recently elected as the organization chair for our Liberal riding association, which I did leading up to my election in 2015. So, I’m already looking at organizing a town hall on medical assistance in dying in the spring. That’s going to be a key piece of legislation that the government has to work on. I was part of the original legislation and I think it’s an important conversation: “medical assistance in dying in Canada, what’s next?”
So I’m going to be involved in some town halls and things like that. Beyond that I’m not really sure. I’m going to keep my options open. My interest is to maintain some form of presence through volunteering and public service.
MJ: Are you planning on running in the next election?
JA: Absolutely! The nomination process has not been clarified by the party yet, but once it is, I’m going to put my name in for this riding.
MJ: Do you have anything you’d like to say to the people of this riding?
JA: Just “thank you” to the constituents. “Thank you for having placed your trust in me in 2015.”
One of the things I’m really proud of—and I can hold my head high—I did a lot of great work in the community. Nobody ever said to me, “John, we hate you and we can’t stand the work you’ve done.” Generally, people have been very supportive of, and aware of, the work I’ve done for the community.
I heard time and time again that people would have loved to have voted for me, but they were mad at my leader. And so, I wore that. But I’m very proud of how I represented the riding and the work that I did. And so to me, that’s been an affirmation of the work I’ve done. And I thank the community for that.
Other messages that I would leave people would be to encourage them to continue to be involved in politics.
UPDATE: Just before press time, John informed the Cloverdale Reporter he had just accepted a job with the Township of Langley as their new cultural services manager, which he’ll be starting as of Jan. 20.
“One of the conditions of the job is that I will still be allowed to pursue politics,” he said.
editor@cloverdalereporter.com
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Police in Hong Kong have detained dozens of people on charges of “breaching public peace”, including a woman carrying a bouquet of flowers and a man who held a candle, during a crackdown on commemorations of the anniversary of the bloodshed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Restrictions in Hong Kong have stifled what were once the largest vigils marking the anniversary of the bloody crackdown by Chinese troops on pro-democracy demonstrators, leaving cities like Taipei, London, New York and Berlin to keep the memory of June 4, 1989, alive.
Near Victoria Park on Sunday night, the previous site of yearly vigils, hundreds of police conducted stop and search operations, and deployed armoured vehicles and police vans.
Police took away more than a dozen people at the scene, according to the Reuters news agency, including activist Alexandra Wong, 67, who carried a bouquet of flowers, a man who held a copy of “35th of May”, a play on the Tiananmen crackdown, and an elderly man standing alone on a street corner with a candle.
“The regime wants you to forget, but you can’t forget… It [China] wants to whitewash all history,” said Chris To, 51, who visited the park in a black T-shirt and was searched by police.
“We need to use our bodies and word of mouth to tell others what happened.”
In a statement, police said 11 men and 12 women aged between 20 and 74 were detained on suspicion of “breaching the public peace at the scene”.
A further four people had been arrested on Saturday for “seditious” acts and “disorderly conduct”, and four more on suspicion of breaching the peace.
‘Shameful campaign’
Discussion of the crackdown in Tiananmen Square – when China’s Communist Party sent in troops and tanks to quash peaceful protests – is highly sensitive for Chinese authorities and commemoration is forbidden on the mainland.
Hundreds – by some estimates, more than 1,000 – were killed.
Commemorations of the event have also become increasingly off-limits in Hong Kong since China imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020, effectively barring anyone from holding memorial events.
After the enactment of the security law, Tiananmen-related visual spectacles, including statues at universities, were also removed. Three leaders of the group that used to organise the vigil were charged with subversion under the law. The group itself was disbanded in 2021 after being informed by police that it was under investigation for working on behalf of foreign groups, an accusation the group denied.
Most recently, books featuring the event have been pulled from public library shelves.
Ahead of the anniversary, senior officials in Hong Kong warned people to abide by the national security law but refused to clarify if commemoration activities were illegal under the legislation. Authorities also tightened security across Hong Kong, deploying as many as 6,000 police, including riot and anti-terrorism officers, according to local media.
Following Sunday’s arrests, the office of United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said in a tweet that it was “alarmed by reports of detentions” in Hong Kong and called for the “release of anyone detained for exercising freedom of expression & peaceful assembly”.
Amnesty International also condemned the detentions, saying the use of colonial-era sedition charges against activists and the persistence of non-conforming voices “lays bare the futility of the authorities’ attempts to enforce silence and obedience”.
It added: “The Hong Kong government’s shameful campaign to stop people marking this anniversary mirrors the censorship of the Chinese central government and is an insult to those killed in the Tiananmen crackdown.”
Despite the anniversary crackdown, some Hong Kong individuals and businesses quietly marked June 4.
A shop gave away candles, while a bookstore displayed Tiananmen Square archival material. Jailed Hong Kong activist Chow Hang-tung, one of the leaders of a group called The Alliance, which used to organise the June 4 vigils, said on Facebook that she would hold a 34-hour hunger strike.
‘Clear conclusion’
In Beijing, meanwhile, Tiananmen Square was thronged with tourists taking pictures under the watchful eyes of police and other personnel but with no obvious sign of stepped-up security.
Ahead of the anniversary, a group of mothers who lost their children in the Tiananmen crackdown sought redress and issued a statement renewing their call for “truth, compensation and accountability”.
“Though 34 years have passed, for us, family members of those killed, the pain of losing our loved ones in that one night has tormented us to this day,” the group said in a statement released by the New York-based watchdog Human Rights in China.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, when asked about the government’s response to events around the world to mark the anniversary, said in Beijing on Friday that the government had already come to a “clear conclusion about the political turmoil in the late 1980s”.
In democratically-governed Taiwan, the last remaining part of the Chinese-speaking world where the anniversary can be marked freely, hundreds attended a memorial at Taipei’s Liberty Square where a “Pillar of Shame” statue was displayed.
Kacey Wong, an artist who is among dozens of Hong Kong residents who have moved to Taiwan, said more than 30 years of commemorating the 1989 protests had made it a part of life.
[“Detained” below]
Wong said an artist friend, Sanmu Chen, had been detained along with others while attempting to stage a public street performance in Causeway Bay in Hong Kong.
“So, it’s all engrained in our subconscious that we should care and practise our sympathy towards other people who are yearning for democracy and freedom,” Wong said.
Taiwan Vice President William Lai, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate in next January’s election, wrote on his Facebook page that the memory of what happened in Beijing in 1989 must be preserved.
“The event commemorating June 4 has continued to be held in Taipei, which shows that democracy and authoritarianism are the biggest differences between Taiwan and China,” he said.
Vigils were also held around the world, from Japan to Australia, with people standing with candles next to images of the brutal crackdown.
In Sydney, dozens of demonstrators rallied at the Town Hall, chanting “Free Hong Kong”, while holding up yellow umbrellas, the symbol of pro-democracy protests since 2014, and placards.
US Consulate in #HongKong lit candles all across building windows in memory of the #TiananmenMassacre on #June4th.
“The only place in Hong Kong that could light a candle on #June4th.” Thank you @USAinHKMacau. #悼念無罪 #Tiananmen1989 #6434 pic.twitter.com/XkNimPgtyq
— Frances Hui 許穎婷 (@frances_hui) June 5, 2023
And in London, before marching to the Chinese embassy, protesters staged a re-enactment featuring a blow-up tank and women dressed in white, emulating a statue to liberty set up on Tiananmen Square in 1989.
A 59-year-old poet from China’s Sichuan province told the AFP news agency at the Trafalgar Square rally that his family fled soon after the Tiananmen crackdown.
“Chinese people in my generation know what happened but the younger ones, not really,” said the man, who declined to be named for fear of Chinese reprisals.
“Their parents, their grandparents, need to keep up the knowledge and we all need to remember at events overseas like this.”
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is committed to keeping David Johnston in place as Canada’s special rapporteur on foreign interference, despite a majority of MPs voting to call on him to resign.
Trudeau said in Toronto Friday that he looks forward to public hearings the former governor general is expected to hold “across the country” over the coming months before he releases a final report by the end of October.
“He is taking very seriously this question and he is digging into the facts,” Trudeau said.
The House of Commons passed an NDP motion earlier this week, with the support of Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs, that urged Johnston to step aside and asked the government to call a public inquiry.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said in Winnipeg today that Johnston has to go but wouldn’t name a potential replacement.
“All the parties in the House of Commons should come together and agree on someone who is not partisan, not connected to any party leader and who has a track record of objectivity, preferably as a judge,” he said.
Poilievre has criticized the special rapporteur role as a “fake job” and questioned Johnston’s ability to objectively scrutinize the Liberal government’s handling of alleged foreign meddling because of his ties to the Trudeau family.
Poilievre is refusing to review a classified portion of Johnston’s initial report into foreign interference, saying it would prevent him from publicly criticizing the federal government on the subject.
Johnston has defended his integrity and downplayed his connections to the prime minister, saying this week he intends to stay on in his role.
“When I accepted the mandate to act as independent special rapporteur, I did so with full knowledge of the fact that the work ahead would be neither straightforward nor uncontroversial,” Johnston said in a media statement earlier this week.
“I deeply respect the right of the House of Commons to express its opinion about my work going forward, but my mandate comes the government. I have a duty to pursue that work until my mandate is completed.”
Trudeau accused Poilievre and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet of letting political arguments and political attacks get in the way of facts.
“They have refused to get security briefings on the actual facts surrounding the intelligence and the question of foreign interference, because they want to continue to smear a man of unimpeachable integrity and deep commitment and service to Canada,” Trudeau said.
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Life after public office is not always a stream of plum assignments. Dealing with defeat can be devastating
Holland told the story of that loss last October while testifying before the procedure and House affairs committee. He made the shocking public admission of his suicide attempt in front of his peers.
“Because I had thrown my entire universe into this enterprise at the expense of unfortunately a lot of other things I should have taken better care of, I was in a really desperate spot,” Holland said during his testimony.
Attempting to end his life served as the “genesis” of Holland seeing his life differently and “reframing the choices” he faced.
When Bill Morneau resigned as Finance Minister in 2020 he went on to a fellowship at Yale, joined CIBC’s board of directors and wrote a book released earlier this year. Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney landed at Calgary law firm Bennett Jones. While many Canadians assume life after politics is a stream of board appointments and plum assignments, it isn’t always an easy landing. Being an elected official is a unique profession as the job’s singlemost important qualification is appealing to people and garnering the most votes on election night. Being defeated can be a devastating blow to one’s self worth.
You put your heart and soul on the line, and when you lose, it’s hard not to take it personally
Mark Holland
Holland told the National Post that being a politician in an all-encompassing career, and having it suddenly taken away was traumatic. “It’s so much part of your identity, that it takes a while to get over,” he said.
Léo Duguay, who until 1988 represented the Winnipeg-area riding of Saint Boniface-Saint Vital for the Progressive Conservatives, said that Holland’s experience is not uncommon among former MPs transitioning to private life after politics.
“Some were very lucky, I was one of them. Some people right away find a job and something they like, and they’re good,” he said.
“Some people never expected to lose — so there’s that shock of people you thought were your friends and supported you and voted for you, to find that a whole bunch of people didn’t vote for you, and you’re out.”
Dugay, who has served as president of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians, said depression and suicidal thoughts aren’t unheard of among their ranks. “For the people who lose, and even those who planned their loss, the shock is much greater than they thought,” he said.
Tiziana Casciaro, a professor of organizational behaviour at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said “transitional trauma” is a very real phenomenon, rooted in the gain and sudden loss of power. “It’s a basic need that we all have, to feel that we are in control, to some extent, of our existence, that we can influence the world around us,” she said.
“When you’re in politics and voted into office, you’re given control over resources that many value, and therefore you become important in their eyes.”
“You don’t have to put your name out there in front of thousands or millions of people — depending on the scope of the election — and be judged by them. In a sense, you’re much more vulnerable.”
Some have no idea how to look for a job, because they’ve never done that
Léo Duguay
While MPs who’ve accumulated at least six years of service qualify for a government pension, Dugay said about 40 per cent of former parliamentarians aren’t eligible. In nearly all cases, MPs who resign or are voted out are eligible for a one-time severance allowance of 50 per cent of their annual salary, as well as access to transitional benefits including education funding.
For Sue Barnes, who represented London-West for the Liberals for 15 years, the realities of her narrow October 2008 election-night loss hit fast.
“One of the things that affected me immediately was going from masses of emails and your calendar being filled every weekend with events … because somebody’s replaced you,” she recalled.
Barnes said she experienced feelings of grief over her loss for at least a year. “Not for the job, but what it meant to me,” she explained. “The connection to people working hard and solving problems —I really missed the intellectual stimulation of the job.”
People don’t know what to say to you — it’s very socially isolating
Holland, who lost by less than 3,300 votes to Conservative candidate Chris Alexander in the 2011 election, had similar recollections.
“You move from your calendar and phone constantly being filled to suddenly all of that being displaced and being completely silent,” he said. “You realize how voracious this life is, how much it takes over so many elements of your life, and you’re left to fill those back in.
He also found that after leaving office some people just avoided him. “It’s not that people don’t like you anymore, it’s just awkward,” he said. “People don’t know what to say to you — it’s very socially isolating.”
Casciaro, who co-authored a book on the topic titled Power for All, said serving at the will of the people — and suddenly having those same people take your power away — can impact one’s sense of self-worth.
While Holland would eventually run again and win in 2015, he spent much of his four-year hiatus rebuilding his life.
“When you do this work, as a member of Parliament, there’s no plan B,” he said. “It is all-consuming, you give every inch of yourself, you don’t have time to plan what you would do if you were to lose — you can’t go into an election thinking you might lose.”
She recognizes that her pension-eligible years of service left her in a better spot financially than others, which she credits with giving her some options.
“I loved the work, but I was exhausted by it,” she said. “It catches up to you after a while.”
If you’re thinking about suicide or are worried about a friend or loved one, please contact the Canada Suicide Prevention Service at 1.833.456.4566 toll free or connect via text at 45645, from 4 p.m. to midnight ET. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911.
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