South Okanagan-West Kootenay Member of Parliament Richard Cannings.

Image Credit: Contributed

Riding his beloved bicycle, spending more time with his grandchildren and “playing bad fiddle” are all on the agenda as longtime South Okanagan-West Kootenay Member of Parliament Richard Cannings gets ready for retirement.

After a decade of representing constituents in Ottawa, Cannings, 70, said he’s looking forward to a much less hectic schedule as he finishes out his third and final term as MP.

“When I first ran, I promised my wife (Margaret) only two terms,” said Cannings, in an interview Monday from Kelowna International Airport, as he and his wife were minutes away from boarding a plane for a long trip to New Zealand to visit family. “Near the end of the second term, which was a two-year truncated term due to Covid, I told her there’s still things I need to do, so I convinced my wife to let me run for a third term.

“That broke my original agreement, so I knew there was no point going to her and suggesting a fourth time. So I made the announcement a long time ago and nothing is going to change that this time around.”

Cannings’ political career will end and he will begin retirement following the next federal election, scheduled for late October.

However, Cannings, like so many others, wouldn’t be the least surprised if a federal election is called much sooner when and if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigns as leader of the Liberal Party, forcing a spring election.

“It’s looking like we’re going to have an election this spring sometime, I would hazard a guess,” he said. “I’m thinking it will probably be sometime in April if I was guessing, but we’ll see.”

As a longtime environmental scientist and author long before he got into the political ring, Cannings said he will have nothing but fond memories about his decade in politics representing the good people of the South Okanagan and West Kootenay.

“I can say it has been the greatest job you can imagine, at least for someone like me, who loves a complex life, an intense life and learning a lot all the time,” he said. “You learn so much every day. You’re meeting interesting people, hearing interesting testimony and getting involved in important debates.

“It has been a great job. Some weeks it’s only Tuesday and I’m thinking my goodness this has been a long week and you realize you’re only two days into the week. It has all gone by very quickly, but it also seems like a lifetime as well. It’s been a fabulous experience.”

Cannings is proud that he was able to return to the Penticton home he was born in and will continue to live there once he retires.

Cannings, who was born and raised in Penticton, spent much of his adult life living an working in Vancouver and also did a three-year stint at a job in Newfoundland.

He returned to the Okanagan and lived in Naramata for 15 years, before returning to Penticton and back into the home where he was born and raised several years ago.

When asked what his proudest achievement has been as a politician, Cannings said fighting for scientific and environmental causes he deeply believes in jumps out.

“I decided to enter politics just to be a voice for science in Parliament,” he said. “I felt we needed it. The country had just been through the Stephen Harper years where so many scientists, a lot of them my colleagues, were being muzzled. I thought that was profoundly the wrong way to go.

“That’s when I realized we needed real scientists in politics and in Parliament to be that voice. I’m proud, in general terms, to have been that voice. Everybody in the House of Commons knows my experience and knowledge as a scientist in general, so they respected that. Even when I was fairly new on the job, I have veteran ministers sit next to me and have chats about issues on science that were on the go.

“I was very proud of that.”

There were young, world-class scientists working on research councils doing incredible work, but were being paid below poverty wages of less than $20,000 a year when he first was elected in 2015 and they hadn’t received a pay hike in almost 15 years, he said.

He pushed relentlessly to ensure that changed and those scientists were well compensated.

“I was part of the campaign to get that fixed and fortunately we got that fixed just this year,” he said. “That’s one thing I was very proud to be part of.”

Cannings also pushed hard for a private members’ bill that took seven years to pass ensuring federal infrastructure upgrades were being completed using environmentally-friendly materials and products.

“That’s now the law of the land, so I’m also very proud of that,” he said.

He also played a big role in getting excise taxes removed from non-alcoholic beer products across Canada.

“I’m just proud of little things like that and being the voice of science and supporting research and making people realize how important that is when forming government policy,” he said.

No matter if the election - and subsequent retirement - begins in the spring or fall, Cannings has a long list of pursuits he can’t wait to tackle.

“I will be riding my bike more, watching more birds, spending more time with my grandkids,” he said. “I’ve got a granddaughter here in Penticton and two more in New Zealand, so I’ll be seeing them more.

“I’ll be playing my fiddle more. I’m pretty mediocre on the fiddle, but I hope to improve on that. I want to do all those kind of things I’ve tried to do when I have a few spare minutes and hours. I don’t think there’s any possibility of me being bored.”

Cannings vehemently shot down any suggestion he might consider running for provincial or municipal office in the future.

“No, I’m retiring,” he said.

“I’m 70 years old and the time has come for younger people to take on that role. I have no desire or ambitions to pursue that at all.”

— This article was originally published by the Penticton Herald.

News from © iNFOnews, 2025