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He says he knows at least one MP, whom he wouldn’t name, whose health prevented him from participating. Others resorted to wearing diapers to help get them through the night.

Outgoing MP Tony Clement, who was a high-ranking Conservative until he got caught emailing and texting explicit digital images of himself last fall, says nobody knows better than he does how the pressures of political life can contribute to making bad decisions.

“I know no one is going to get out the tissue-box for politicians,” says Clement. “But people are going to commit suicide. People are going to die before their time. People are going to make horrendous personal mistakes and I can obviously speak from personal experience on that one.”

People are going to commit suicide. People are going to die before their time

For Clement it’s much more than just overnight voting. It’s the “near-constant online harassment and online judgement,” the non-stop hours of work, constant travel, high-stress decisions and the anxiety that comes from knowing how tenuous your job is.

Clement points to a recent British Medical Journal survey of United Kingdom MPs that found more than one-third suffered from at least one mental-health problem, compared to about one-quarter of the British population as a whole. Anxiety and depression were the most common. He says he would expect similar results if Canadian MPs were surveyed.

Clement says pressure to get re-elected and partisanship mean any time one party raises an idea such as eliminating Friday sittings or limiting evening sittings to make work-life balance easier, MPs in other parties scorn it, so nothing ever changes.