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It didn't take long for former public safety minister Vic Toews to start looking the part of a retired politician, donning a short-sleeved shirt and slacks and sporting his favourite sandals as he worked his last day as a Member of Parliament Monday.
Toews, who was on his way to Steinbach for his final constituency association meeting when I caught up with him, looks as relaxed as ever. With the weight of elected office lifted from his shoulders, Toews, 60, is now contemplating with almost giddy excitement his next career move into the private sector.
"It was really a personal decision by my spouse and myself," said Toews, who officially announced his retirement from politics Monday. "I always promised Stacey I would leave politics when our youngest son got into school."
Toews' son will be starting Grade 1 in the fall. And he said he'd like to be around a lot more to watch him grow up.
"I want to be there to watch him go through school," said Toews, adding the toughest thing for MPs with young kids is to watch them cry every Monday when it's time to return to Ottawa for the week.
Toews, who has a reputation as a no-nonsense, tough-on-crime politician, has actually mellowed in recent years.
Even he admits that if 18 years in politics has taught him anything, it's been to listen more and talk less.
"I've sort of been impulsive when it comes to speaking, I have very strong views on things," said Toews.
"Learning to listen to people, that has really been a good lesson to me."
It's not that Toews' tough-on-crime stance has weakened any. On the contrary, Toews says he believes more than ever that violent criminals need to face consequences for their actions and that law-abiding people have the right to walk freely and safely in their own neighbourhoods.
But it's how those messages are delivered that can always use improvement, said Toews.
A case in point was the federal government's Internet surveillance bill, designed originally by the previous Liberal government to snuff out cyber-criminals and child pornographers and developed further by the Tories with some added safeguards.
The intent of the bill itself was worthy. But it wasn't sold right, and it wasn't fully developed with the level of safeguards the public demanded.
Toews acknowledges the proposed legislation, which has since been shelved, needs to be further analyzed. But there also nees to be a greater understanding among the public how important it is for police to have more effective tools to fight cyber-criminals, including child pornographers, he said.
"I've seen what the police have brought to me, I see how children are abused, it's horrible," said Toews. "This is a problem that is expanding, its not going away."
Everyone in law enforcement and in Parliament knows police need improved tools to fight these growing crimes, said Toews. But because it's politically sensitive, nobody wants to touch it, he said.
"On the Internet issue people don't understand the issue yet and I appreciate that," said Toews.
"It's not their fault it's my fault for not explaining it more broadly."
But it's now unfinished business for someone else to take over. Toews says he's satisfied with the changes he's helped make over the years as attorney general and as public safety minister. But he says there is still a lot of work to do to reform the criminal justice system, particularly the procedural hurdles, red tape and court delays he says is bogging down the system.
"Process is encumbering our entire system," said Toews. "It isn't adding a quality of justice to the system it's simply making it become more tedious, more expensive, more burdensome and not really improving the quality of justice."
Toews -- a former Crown prosecutor -- says he's "pursuing opportunities in the private sector," although he won't say exactly what yet.
But he can guarantee one thing, it won't be as a lawyer or a judge in a court room.
His days of lawmaking and law enforcement are now over.
Source: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2013/07/08/toews-puts-family-before-politics
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