In My Opinion: Thank you Beaches-East York for the opportunity to serve as your MP

By NATHANIEL ERSKINE-SMITH

MP, BEACHES-EAST YORK

Thank you for the opportunity to serve our community in Parliament over the last decade.

Having been elected in 2015 for the first time, my last day will be July 7. I expect there will be a fair and competitive nomination to select the next Liberal candidate, and my constituency team remains available at 1902 Danforth Ave. to assist you until a new MP is elected, hopefully later this summer. You can always reach me at nathanielerskine@gmail.com if I can be of help.

When I started out in a local nomination back in 2013, I promised to do politics differently, to be a strong local advocate, and to make our politics about ideas. In my first speech in Parliament, I “stressed the importance of independence in the House, the importance of thoughtfulness, and the importance of reasonable disagreement.”

I’ve done my best to live by those words. To push the government to be the best version of itself. To stand up for what’s right. And to represent you with seriousness, fairness, and honesty.

I’ve been lucky to have an amazing local team with me every step of the way. No one accomplishes anything alone, and I wouldn’t have accomplished anything without them.

Politics can, at times, feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. It is meaningful progress and unfinished work at the same time, and it takes ambition in ideas, a hard-working team, and an almost unreasonable persistence to create change.

Reflecting on the last 10 years, our team has worked hard to deliver change in a number of important ways.

We’ve been part of efforts to advance serious climate action, strengthen basic income benefits and reduce poverty, support workers, defend competition and protect consumers, get more affordable housing and public transit built, protect animals, advance reconciliation, help constituents through the pandemic, treat substance use as the health issue it is, defend human rights and civil liberties, legalize cannabis, protect kids online, and more.

We worked hard to be there for our east end community. That meant championing ideas for constituents, including action on pediatric cancer and rare diseases, and being there for constituents in moments of crisis and tragedy, from the pandemic to the Danforth Shooting.

It also meant being accessible and engaged; through local events, online Q&As, and the Uncommons podcast, we’ve been able to make our politics about ideas and highlight the importance of working across the aisle towards shared goals.

So, yes, I leave Parliament with a sense of accomplishment in a number of ways.

And there’s also a sense of unfinished business in others.

I hope that future Parliaments will take more seriously the challenges of wealth inequality and generational fairness, that we see greater competition across sectors, that we realize a wartime effort to build housing, transit, and clean energy infrastructure, and that we find a renewed Pearsonian commitment to peace and international assistance.

The job of Member of Parliament comes with little job description. It is what you put into it. It is what you make it.

And while I’ve had some official roles over the years – anti-poverty caucus co-chair, animal welfare caucus chair, 416 caucus chair, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure – the role I have lived the most, and the one I’ve worked hardest to make a reality, is simply to be your principled voice in Parliament. One that takes ideas seriously. Is willing to work across the aisle. Acts with integrity. And more than anything, recognizes that the most important value is honesty.

Honesty is central to trust. And trust is at the heart of our representative democracy.

Thank you for that trust.

In doing politics differently, I’ve more than occasionally been told that politics is a team sport.

Of course, elected representatives are trustees in the public interest, not simply participants in a team sport.

More, we are also voices of our home communities, and those communities are our team too.

When I visit a local coffee shop and see old classmates from Malvern, they are my team. When I’m at a local grocery store and see a volunteer who knocked doors with me in the snow in 2015, they are my team. You are my team.

Thanks to everyone who has been part of our political journey over the last decade, and especially to my family. I couldn’t have done politics differently without your support.

Politics can be maddening, but it’s still one of the most important ways to make a difference in the lives of those around us.