Amidst the tourists in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops strolling among Charlottetown’s heritage homes, Owen Parkhouse stands out in his tan business suit.
On a hot August morning, he is going door-to-door, campaigning to become Prince Edward Island’s next senator.
While there’s no election for the job, Parkhouse has spent nearly four weeks knocking on doors, confidently asking for signatures to help support his application for the job.
“I thought I’d go door to door and get some sense of the peoples’ reaction to the Senate. A lot of people don’t know what the Senate is all about,” Parkhouse said Tuesday as he knocked on doors near Charlottetown’s downtown waterfront, a few blocks from the spot where the Fathers of Confederation gathered in 1864 to create a new nation.
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He has gathered more than 500 signatures to include with an application that must be submitted before the end of the day Thursday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is replacing the old system of patronage for choosing senators – a promise that followed an ethics kerfuffle in which P.E.I. Senator Mike Duffy played a starring role – with a new merit-based appointments process overseen by an independent advisory board.
Last month, that board opened up the application process to anyone who thinks they might be a good fit for one of the 20 current and upcoming vacancies in seven provinces, including one in P.E.I.
Only Canadian citizens between the ages of 30 and 75 who hold $4,000 in property in the province they want to represent are eligible for appointment.
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They are also required to have lived for at least two years in that province.
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Parkhouse is a 51-year-old veteran of the Canadian navy, army and air force, and was wounded in Afghanistan in 2003. He’s also a former president of the P.E.I. Home and School Federation.
Parkhouse said he was hoping to gather signatures from one per cent of the province’s population, or about 1464 names, but the friendliness of Islanders and their willingness to chat about politics is time consuming.
“When I get into someone’s house, they want to sit me down at the kitchen table and I’m here five to 10 minutes, so it’s difficult getting a large number of signatures in a short period of time,” he said.
Still, Parkhouse said the one-on-one chats are better than trying to cram a message into 140 characters on social media.
“I’m a people person. I like meeting people. My experience here has been absolutely positive.”
Aside from Charlottetown, he has spent most of his time campaigning in the eastern end of the province near Morell, where he lives with his wife and daughter and served on village council.
Parkhouse, who is fluently bilingual, was appointed to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board in July 2013 and served as its interim deputy chair for one year.
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Political scientist Don Desserud said even without an Alberta-style Senate election – the province has held public votes and then pressured the prime minister of the day to appoint the winners – support from the public can’t hurt Parkhouse’s application.
“I think what he is trying to do is to impress the committee that he has public support and I would assume that the selection committee is going to take that seriously,” said Desserud, of the University of Prince Edward Island.
John Flood, a resident of Charlottetown, said he was impressed to have Parkhouse arrive at his door.
“We like to know, especially here on the Island, people that we’re electing. We want to know what their policies are, what their vision is, what their strengths are. Meeting them face to face is always a good idea,” he said.
The stop at Flood’s door lasted about five minutes, while others who said they didn’t know much about the Senate were either quick to just offer their signature or give a polite “no thank-you.”
Jessica Elsinga, a 17-year-old high school student gave her signature of support, but later said she had little knowledge of the Senate or what it does.
While the panel will recommend an appointment, a final decision will be made by Trudeau.
Desserud said he’s looking forward to the outcome of the selection process.
“What we’re going to find out is the kind of senators that our prime minister would like to see in the Senate. I think that will be an interesting revelation about what his vision for the Senate is,” he said.
Parkhouse said he has found there is a common trait in what most people are looking for in a new senator.
“They want leaders of this country to have integrity,” he said.
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