Scott Simms was canvassing in Little Burnt Bay, a fishing village an hour’s drive north of Gander, Newfoundland, when he decided that the federal election of 2021 was going to be his last.
Simms, fifty-two, a former weatherman with an easy smile and a self-deprecating sense of humour, was doing something he had done many times since he was first elected as Liberal MP for this part of northern Newfoundland, in 2004: driving around with his campaign team, knocking on doors, and shaking hands. He remembers a big fellow coming out of one house while he was walking up the driveway. The man began shouting at him about prime minister Justin Trudeau. Simms, who is five feet four, tried to calm him down. “He comes toward me, to tower over me. Now, I’ve been the shortest kid all my life. That’s not a big deal.”
