Sure. I can speak to that.
In our exit interviews, we talked to people who aren't in the job anymore, so they could be very open and reflective about what they experienced. Their comment was often, “Wow, I had all this to say, and nobody ever asked me these questions before”. Then they were able to unpack all the ways in which they felt slighted, undermined or attacked in varying ways of severity.
It's often women who really downplay the extent of the abuse and the incivility they encountered. As a result, there's a lot of compartmentalization that happens. This affects male colleagues as well because they're bearing witness to this and experiencing it with colleagues they care about.
If we think about this from a sustainability perspective, at the end of the political career, a lot of doors can be closed. That healing and recovering from the compartmentalization that's necessary to perform this job needs to be addressed. That's a serious mental health and wellness issue. It's a public good issue. How are we taking care of our public servants after they've completed their service to us? There's a duty of care element to this as well, then.
What we're talking about is not just what happens on the job. It's hard on the campaign trail, on the digital campaign trail in particular, which can be very abusive and toxic. There is very little training and very few supports available there. The job is hard. Then, post-job is also incredibly challenging. There's a lot of responsibility that we need to account for across that civic journey.