Retirement nears, but work remains for MP

In a wide-ranging one-hour visit with Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki, the veteran politician agreed to take a reflective look back on his nine-year career as a representative in the House of Commons as well as providing a look at the future.
Komarnicki announced this spring that he will not be seeking re-election when the electorate go to the polls in the next federal election. This will give the party and local committee ample time to select the next federal candidate to carry the Conservative banner. Komarnicki has been a runaway leader at the polls in the past, which means the southeast Saskatchewan seat will be a very important one for the current government to try and keep.
Komarnicki said he has made it clear that while he is stepping aside, he will also be stepping out of the picture and definitely will not be making any recommendations to the party’s hierarchy as to who he thinks might be heir to the seat in the House of Commons. He’ll stay well out of that scenario, but will probably work backstage, so-to-speak, on getting the next Conservative party nominee elected.
“The person will have to be an organizer because this is a strong Conservative area, and I expect the competition to be the next nominee will be stiff, and the contest could be tight. The candidate should be a new face, energetic and be prepared to take the next step up. It requires a lot of energy to do this job. There are a lot of miles to travel.”
He said his constituency work and the additional work concerning the two secretariats he served in took up a lot of time.
Komarnicki said he was fortunate to have worked with a number of ministers in the secretariat in Immigration and Human Resources.
If he had been called upon to be a cabinet minister, he said he felt he would have been up to the challenge, but what he had been able to do in the support role, was very rewarding and exciting.
“Wherever you’re placed, that’s where you give it your best, and I always have,” he said.
“It gave me the opportunity to meet some very interesting people and to travel across the country to represent the government and ministry and deal with issues that are very much in front of us today. There’s a lot of reform in human resources, and to be a part of the process to see it happen is exciting,” he said, referring to his time as chairman of the human resources committee.
Housing and labour are other areas he’s been involved with and again, there has been a lot of action on those fronts.
Komarnicki also spoke about items such as the pending Jobs Training Grant file and how important it is to fill vacant positions with skilled workers, which takes some fine tuning. This requires the provincial governments to be onside with the plan as it is presented, or making changes to the concept, so that everyone can buy into the process to serve the better good.
Labour agreements can get tricky because of the conditions (sharing costs) and needs of each province.
“It’s not a bad idea to train people to fill jobs that already exist,” he said, referring to the concept behind the Job Training Grant.
Komarnicki said he felt the Conservative government has been loyal to its founding ideals, especially in terms of serving families, keeping taxes low and making reforms to the criminal law system.
“So in those primary areas, I think we’ve held to those ideals.”
Komarnicki said changes to employment insurance is another file the current government could be proud of. They had to put money into it during the recession, but incrementally it’s been moved toward a self-sufficiency level.
“You need to reduce the red tape, get out of the way of entrepreneurs and not increase but reduce taxes to allow the economy to move forward and allow foreign investment to come in, and over the years Canada has done fairly well.”
On the subject of the perception that the Prime Minister’s Office has placed a muzzle on MPs, especially backbenchers, Komarnicki said, “There are interesting dynamics and pressures applied. If you’re going to run a country you have to have structure and organization and direction. You can’t have everyone pulling in a different direction. The PMO’s office has a team of people by and large I find are pretty good, well educated and capable, and then on the other hand you have MPs who are very capable and have the experience of life and you have some tension at times. My experience is that you have the caucus meeting each week where you can make your point, state your position to the PM and his office. There is the liaison committee too, so you have channels where you can express your points of view. You won’t always have agreement on the decisions and directions. But you have to decide as a MP at what point it’s something you can no longer support. And in my view it requires team players. You make your best efforts to change their point of view. Once they’re established you have to pull in the same direction unless you find yourself in a moral or ethical position where you just can’t. Then if you can’t, then you’re off on that course.
“It’s obvious you’re not always going to agree with the direction of government, but you pull in the same direction because overall when you look at the big picture, look at it from 30,000 feet, you ask yourself, ‘are we doing good things for the country that I signed up for?’ and if you are, look at things that are paramount. If you look at how the country’s changed, it’s pretty substantial. But with individual items, I don’t always agree with our other MPs, but the big picture is where we are going as a team.”
Komarnicki said he’s always held strong views on individual items such as the question of abortion and protecting life, but the PMO has taken a position that hasn’t allowed the MPs to express themselves.
“I’ve always felt there was room for legitimate debate on those kinds of issues. Some of the steps I haven’t been in agreement with, and I’ve always voted that way. I respect the PM’s view on that topic. We’re allowed to vote as we see fit. I’ve always had pretty strong views on the definition of marriage too, so you have to say if the majority is going in a certain direction, you suck it up and keep going.”
On Senate reform or complete abolition Komarnicki said it would be a matter of making it clear just how either of those things could be done. The legal implications and the process would be tricky, and it would probably be the Supreme Court that would ultimately decide on any major direction that might be taken to do either of these things.
It’s a matter of following the rules.
Komarnicki said reforming the Senate would probably be a good idea, especially if it could be made more independent rather than as a body of appointees who are expected to follow party lines. He said the PM is quite clear that if provinces elected a senator, that person would be appointed.
When it comes down to personalities in the House of Commons, Komarnicki said he finds Thomas Mulcair, the leader of the Official Opposition, the NDP, to be quite capable after he found himself in a position where he was taking over from Jack Layton.
“I don’t think he’s gelled as a potential alternative for government from what I’ve seen,” he said. “He appears to be a bit bombastic, a couple of mistakes he’s made with respect to the Dutch disease in terms of the high dollar and natural resources would not have stood him well in the west. His party’s position on the carbon tax is also problematic. So I think he’ll have difficulty in improving his party’s position out west, and it could be quite a contest in Quebec to some extent,” he said, referring to the situation where the majority of the NDP MPs are from that province as a result of the ground work done by the previous deceased leader, Layton.
As for Justin Trudeau, Komarnicki said he too will probably have difficulty in the west. He said he was young and still hadn’t put anything of substance forward in terms of policy or statements, at least to this time. 
“So far his points are quite shallow, and he’s been basically going on his personality. I don’t see him as a leader the country is prepared for going forward. But he does have an ability to attract people. In that he’s shown well. Although in some places I see where the polls have shifted, so the honeymoon may already be over. Canadians as a whole will see what shape we’re in internationally and Harper is still the best leader. Economic indicators are strong. We came through a recession in pretty good shape. Independent third parties have taken a look at this government and the ratings are pretty good.”
Moving resources to markets is a big issue for this area of the country. Moving oil to Eastern Canadian refineries is a current critical issue, along with the safety and environmental issues having to be considered.
“To get what the world needs from landlocked Saskatchewan you are going to have to find ways to transport it efficiently. Oil, gas and agricultural commodities, everything I’ve seen from the international trade minister, prime minister and agricultural minister they’ve been very aggressive in doing bi-lateral agreements.
Komarnicki noted he was surprised at how hard the beef industry was hit, first with the BSE crisis and the slow return of the international markets to Canadian beef and now the additional challenge coming from the United States regarding country of origin labelling regulations for beef.  He said it could be worse if prices had been soft, but fortunately they have been strong lately on the beef and grain side of the farming sector.
As far as the controversial decision to shut down the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly on grain marketing and handling, Komarnicki said he has been surprised that he hasn’t received any feedback. It’s been one year since the practice was curtailed.
“My sense is that farmers have accepted the fact and have acclimatized to the new sense of farming. It’s not like it’s a new learning curve, they’ve marketed other commodities in the open market.”
He said the fact that prices are robust might be another reason for the acceptance of the new reality.
As far as House of Commons personalities are concerned, Komarnicki said he’s witnessed some sea changes over the years, one of the major ones being the passing of Layton, which in some regards was a surprise since it happened relatively quickly.
“When you look at some of the players, there’s Paul Martin, Belinda Stronach. There was a time she was in our cabinet. There was the switch to the Liberal party and there was a tie vote and Belinda Stronach came in to help them survive. And now all these players are gone.”
Komarnicki said the arrival of the new, and often very young NDP MPs from Quebec has also provided some shifts in thoughts and studies.
“You have a whole new set of faces facing you across the floor. Bloc members are gone, including Gilles Duceppe, their leader. Having seen all that, it leaves me with the thought that in the world of politics, all kinds of things can happen in a relatively short time.
“That’s why I say we have to look at things from 30,000 feet and not get too involved with the tinkering of things you encounter along the way.”
He said he has been quite fortunate to represent the constituency during robust economic times.
“In 2006, our population started to increase rather dramatically, my sense was there was another dimension to this constituency and it, too, needed to be brought to the foreground. And when I look at the oil and gas, service industries, carbon capture, potash … all of those things have made Souris-Moose Mountain a composite of various factors. We have had one of the strongest economic periods of Saskatchewan’s history. And, of course, the negative such as housing and roads.”
Komarnicki said he is firm in his decision to retire with the call of the next election.
He said he’ll miss the hum and buzz of the House of Commons, and it’s been interesting to have the collegiality that exists there, but it would be time to move on with a promise he made to his wife that he’d sit back for at least six months in a retirement, or at least a semi-retirement before making any new decisions. He said a return to a law practice was not in the mix, it was something he had done for 31 years prior to his first election in 2004, and so while he may enter into some new challenges at age 66 or more, that wouldn’t be part of the new direction.