Former MLAs seek public input on improving political decorum

A group of former Manitoba MLAs is hoping to restore civility and decrease partisanship in politics.

The Association of Former Manitoba MLAs’ Democracy Initiative plans to meet over the next few months with stakeholders across the province — including universities, non-profits, cultural organizations, labour groups and politicians — to hear ideas about how politics can be a less polarizing job.

“I think we just all need to work together to be better at what we do and how we behave,” initiative member and former Brandon East MLA Len Isleifson said.

While the initiative started more than a year ago and is for all levels of government, members in the Manitoba legislature have come under the spotlight in recent months for resorting to name-calling and other breaches in decorum. Even the speaker of the house, Tom Lindsey, who acts as a referee in chambers, apologized earlier this year for a comment he made where he also threatened to toss members during a shouting match. Progressive Conservatives and NDP members shouted insults at each other last week and both parties agreed decorum in the house has been poor.

“It’s too much of a battle — they’ve taken away the debating of issues, and (a) lot of it is really personal attacks on all sides of the house,” Isleifson said.

Isleifson served as a PC MLA from 2016 until 2023 and before that as a Brandon city councillor. He said it’s important for the association to hear from the public before it can move onto next steps.

He said one of the reasons people don’t run for office is because of the attacks they face, both from other politicians and community members.

“There’s a lot of smart people out there that could do a world of good,” he said.

Isleifson, who is also planning to run for mayor of Brandon next October, said he has been asked many times if he wants to run as an MLA again in 2027, but he has “no desire” to do so because of the level of discourse.

City council, by comparison, doesn’t have political parties, and council members are more easily able to work together on bettering the community, he said.

He said if someone is going to attack a politician, it should be because of the policies and not them as a person. The rise of “keyboard warriors,” where people make comments online, often without a name attached, also needs to stop, Isleifson said.

Initiative chair Marianne Cerilli, who served as the New Democrat MLA for Radisson from 1990 to 2003, said she wants to hear people describe what they think is a healthy democracy.

“People are very concerned that it seems like there’s an erosion of civility, and it’s very polarized and … hyper partisan,” Cerilli said on Tuesday.

That’s exacerbated by what’s happening in politics in the United States, she said.

Another point to think about, she said, is how governments present bills. Omnibus bills, for example, are often so long and convoluted that it’s difficult to understand for the average person, she said.

The democracy initiative currently has five members — two New Democrats, two Liberals and one PC. While it consists of former party politicians, the initiative is set up to be non-partisan. The hope is to get to a total of three NDP and three PCs along with the two Liberals from different parts of the province, Cerilli said.

“We do hope that seeing a bunch of former MLAs, who in the past were at odds with each other, working together to do something constructive and positive for democracy — we hope that inspires people to get involved,” Cerilli said.

The organization is in the process of creating surveys for stakeholders that will outline the goals and scope the organization wants to follow.

While the initiative won’t have a concrete plan until stakeholders share information, the exercise is really just about getting people to “talk about what they think is a healthy democracy,” Cerilli said.

Implementation of the findings will happen about a year and a half from now, she said.

Cerilli said the kinds of threats politicians receive now are worse than when she was in office, and they travel farther because of social media.

“People are deciding maybe they’re not going to run because they don’t want to have that headache, and that trouble in their life, and put their family into those kind of positions where they’re going to be threatened,” she said.

Opposition members will now search for someone’s social media history as a way to use it against them, Cerilli said, and “opposition parties see themselves as adversaries only.”

Drew Caldwell, who was the New Democrat MLA for Brandon East from 1999 to 2016 and served as a city councillor for seven years before that, said having civility and an open legislature where everyone can feel comfortable is important.

His father, who served in the Second World War, fought the Nazis. Having a proper democracy, where it is civil, ensures that crimes like those won’t happen again, he said.

“It’s so important that people participate in meaningful ways in our democracy,” Caldwell said.

Isleifson said while turning the attacks and partisan politics around is “not going to be an easy thing to do,” someone has to try it.

“Maybe it’s a pipe dream.”

While no current plan exists, he said he hopes to file a final report to the speaker of the house detailing how people can work together to implement the findings of the report.

» alambert@brandonsun.com