Randall Garrison says farewell in the House of Commons

Thursday December 5, 2024 | COLWOOD, BC [Updated December 6, 2024]

Political news analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends

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Randall Garrison — the long-time NDP Member of Parliament (MP) for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke — has announced that he will be retiring before the end of the current session of the 44th Parliament of Canada.

Garrison’s last day in the House of Commons was today. He last day in the constituency is expected to be January 3, 2025 (this date may be revised).

Garrison cited health reasons (advice of his new doctor to put his health first) as to the timing of his resignation, during his remarks in the House of Commons on December 4.

Garrison was first elected federally in 2011 as the MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca (a riding that was renamed as Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke ahead of the 2015 election in large part due to the input of Garrison himself). He has served in that capacity for four terms over nearly 14 years.

He thanked his constituents in six municipalities and four First Nations, including and a large a contingent of military families. He cited support from the South Asian community, the Jewish community, and the LGBTQIA2S+ community. He thanked staff, team supporters, volunteers and donors as well as trade unionists who “always came out to support me”.

“Sometimes I’m still a little astonished to actually be standing in this House,” said Garrison, retelling his path from being a “queer kid from a farm in Nebraska and a middle class family ridden by domestic violence and child abuse” to coming to Canada and eventually becoming a member of parliament.

“I will always be grateful to Canada for providing me a refuge more than 50 years ago when it was still illegal for men to have sex with men in the United States,” he told the House.

He retold of both Tommy Douglas and Jack Layton being major influences in his becoming a member of the NDP.

He said that “diversity is one of our strengths as a nation and more diverse parliaments do indeed make better laws”, for which applause arose.

Increasing strength in the riding:

In each consecutive election race, Garrison increased the vote margin for the NDP.

• 2011 – Garrison won by a margin of 406 votes ahead of Conservative candidate Troy DeSouza.
• 2015 – Garrison won by a margin of 5,214 votes ahead of Green candidate David Merner
• 2019 – Garrison won by a margin of 5,381 votes ahead of Green candidate David Merner; the Conservatives and Liberals together surpassed Garrison’s win by a combined 2,076 (those two parties had split the right/centre-right vote).
• 2021 – Garrison won by a margin of 13,590 votes ahead of Liberal candidate Doug Kobayashi.

Held on longer than expected:

It was reliable political scuttlebutt over the past year that Garrison would have already resigned by now, allowing Maja Tait (as NDP nominee for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke) to run in a hoped-for by-election this fall. Then a pause was put on that action to allow the BC provincial election to be completed (to avoid confusing the public if two elections had been going on at the same time). The results of the BC election took about three weeks to be sorted out. By then it was the middle of November, a time when a by-election would get little attention in the Christmas holiday season.

Earlier this year Garrison and his husband Teddy had sold their house in Colwood and had relocated to Kelowna. Garrison was back in his home riding this fall for Remembrance Day and to host a ceremony at which he awarded King Charles III Coronation Medals to a number of his constituents.

But in the last month or two, any thought of a by-election seems to have fizzled out, as the NDP continue to prop up the 44th Parliament by continuing to support the Liberals in the House even though the Supply and Confidence Agreement between the two parties (first signed in March 2022 between the Liberals and the NDP) had been ended by the NDP in August 2024.

It was clear from comments in the House of Commons yesterday that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh had asked Garrison a few times in the past year or so to stay on. Perhaps that was for simply pragmatic matters (e.g. the cost to run a by-election with a full general election coming up fast behind that).

Tait is currently busy as Mayor of the District of Sooke where several major projects on the table. She will now be shifting to plans for running a full-blown campaign in a general election instead of a by-election.

Meanwhile, the stagnant House of Commons of the past few months has stirred very little excitement about the process of parliament in recent months. The NDP are busy focussing on supporting the passage of some kind of legislation; they lucked out with the GST tax holiday legislation as a way to keep parliamentary debate alive even though the GST tax holiday has overall had bad reviews from both the business community and the NDP.

Garrison’s accomplishments:

Randall Garrison has been a multi-faceted politician. He has adeptly appealed to a range of voting sectors while achieving many of his own political goals.

• LGBT issues are what Garrison seems most personally pleased about. That covered a broad range of achievements over the years including removing the gay-men blood ban within blood bank services and leading the work to ban conversion therapy. He worked to add transgender rights to the gay and human rights codes and sections of the criminal code. and fought to see gay persecution as a reason for refugee claims. He says all those successes because of years of struggle at the grassroots level across the country.
• Garrison also spoke proudly yesterday about his political successes on behalf of the military and defence communities. His work led to the elimination of criminal records for the personal posession of drugs and to expand access to community-based bail supervision to make communities “more safe and also more just”.The Esquimalt base of the Department of National Defence is in Esquimalt within his riding; he delivered support for the local ship building industry. and his professional career before politics was in teaching college-level criminal studies. Garrison had been the critic for national defence when Tom Mulcair was NDP leader.
• Climate action and environment was a passion for Garrison even before he was in federal politics. As an MP he held high a campaign to protect the Southern Resident Killer Whales (orca whales) that are in endangered in dwindling numbers on the west coast. He got federal funding for the initial cleanup of Esquimalt Harbour.
• Garrison also put food security on the map for Vancouver Island. His riding is home to small farms and one of the first large successful community gardens in the region. In the 2021 election in particular he highlighted how just three percent of the island’s food supply is grown on the island, but before that he would bring other MPs to tour the Sunriver Community Gardens to show how small-scale agriculture is done on the west coast.

• Political strategy: It was Garrison who endorsed Jagmeet Singh to run for the NDP party leadership in 2017 and who started bringing Tait along was the his replacement possibly as far back as 2013 (alongside then NDP MLA John Horgan in the region who helped back Tait’s election for mayor in 2014 through use of his NDP team). Some of Garrison’s support team also ran for other local positions from time to time, including one for City of Langford council years ago and for Sooke School District SD62 trustee in 2022.

• Garrison took part in numerous local events over the years.
• He is also proud of the work of his constituency office to support constituents in dealing with the federal government. He says his Ottawa staff and constituency staff have been “loyal and long-serving”.
• Victories by the NDP for ordinary working Canadians have included dental care, an Indigenous-led housing program, and anti-scab legislation, said Garrison yesterday.

Things left undone:

Garrison’s bill regarding coercive and controlling behaviour in intimate partner violence (now Laurel Collins’ private members Bill C-332) remains stuck in the Senate despite having passed in the House unanimously last summer.

He says his repeated attempts have failed to convince both the Conservative and Liberal governments to remove self-harm from the military code of conduct as a disciplinary offence. He says it would signal an important change in attitude toward mental health in the military.

Garrison says that he remains disappointed that his bill to add the queer community to federal employment equity legislation “so we can have a workforce that fairly represents the whole of the country that we are” has not succeeded.

He would like to see decriminalization of HIV non-disclosure and expenditures on community testing and treatment programs.

He hopes that the detailed work of parliamentary committees will get more media attention in future.

He hopes to see more equity in Canadian society.

An honour to serve:

“It has been an honour to serve my constituents and all Canadians,” said Garrison, choking back tears at the end of his speech.

Island stronghold:

Garrison has been a key player in maintaining the NDP stronghold on Vancouver Island.

Other than Green Party Leader Elizabeth May who has held the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding since 2011, the six other federal ridings on Vancouver Island have been NDP-orange for a long time (Victoria, Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke, Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, North Island-Powell River, Courtenay-Alberni and Nanaimo-Ladysmith).

At least twice in recent years, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh did an island-wide tour to visit all the NDP-held ridings.

Garrison bought Singh to Sooke in 2023 to meet NDP nominee Maja Tait for the first time. This year Garrison attended the nomination of Colin Plant as the NDP candidate for Saanich-Gulf Islands for the upcoming election.

All-party comments:

• NDP – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said that he trusts Randall Garrison’s counsel. “He gives me lots of very great advice and he does lots of really important work in this House.” Long messages from Garrison to Singh would “guide me in the right direction, would encourage me when times were tough”, said Singh.
• Liberal – Arif Virani, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada said Garrison is a “classy individual and human being” who has “always been a fierce defender of his riding and his community”. He recognized Garrison’s work on justice files and his “passion projects”. As well: “He represents the best of what it means to be a Parliamentarian in this Chamber. He’s committed to his riding, he’s committed to his portfolio, and he is committed to defending the interests in which he believes.”
• Conservative – Damien Kurek, an Alberta MP, said that to see these remarks from all the parties is to show that common ground can be found despite disagreements and policy differences. He has appreciated Garrison’s care for the people in the military.
• Bloc – Bloc Quebecois MP Rhéal Éloi Fortin said he has esteem for Garrison, having worked with him in committee over the last few years. He is a man of integrity and is devoted to public service.
• Green Party – Mike Morrice, MP said he was grateful to have had the chance to learn from Garrison.
• House Speaker – gave on a personal note his thanks to Garrison for his work and career that has “deeply affected many Canadians”.

Constituency office:

The Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke constituency office will continue to function in service of constituents. The office is located at 2-50 Burnside Rd West in Saanich. The constituency office phone number is 250-405-6550 and the email is Randall.Garrison@parl.gc.ca .

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