“It was worth it.” that is the overwhelming sentiment from members of the Canadian financial services community who ran in last month’s federal election — even if they lost.

By all accounts, they say, if you have the itch to do it, you should. Running for political office is not necessarily a business or political risk with clients — in fact, it may pay dividends — and represents an opportunity to make a genuine difference, especially for people in the financial services community.

“You have to make time and have the passion for it. Then it’s worth doing,” says Bal Ghosal, an advisor who ran as a Conservative in the Ontario riding of Brampton West. “I had a great experience. I met some great people and developed some long-term relationships, and got involved with the community.”

Ghosal, who works for Freedom 55, a division of London Life Insurance Co. in London, Ont., lost in one of the Greater Toronto Area ridings that went to the Liberals. Liberal incumbent Colleen Beaumier was elected with 49% of the vote, while Ghosal finished with 36%, more than 20,000 votes.

“Many of the predictions had us winning,” he says. “Prime minister-designate Stephen Harper came to my riding twice.”

Although the result was disappointing, Ghosal says he has no regrets. He praised colleagues who supported him, including an administrative assistant who oversaw his business while he was on the hustings. She kept him up to date with clients, dropped off policies at the campaign office and alerted him to a few e-mail emergencies. Another agent made his service calls.

Ghosal endured the longest campaign in Canadian history, but his campaigning started long before that. He caught the political bug in university. For years he had served as a volunteer on various Brampton community boards before taking his first shot at office as a Progressive Conservative for the riding of Etobicoke North in the 2003 Ontario provincial election.

Having a decent shot at a seat is a long-term project, Ghosal explains. Even before the writ was dropped, there were three or four months of soft campaigning at various political events. He says everyone wants to know if he’ll run again, but he’s concentrating on his clients now. “You always keep it in the back of your mind, but you have to look after your family and your business,” he says.

On the balance, Ghosal believes that his political aspirations may actually have helped his business rather than hurt it. He says he was always open about his political leanings with clients; they always respected him for it, and he never let it get in the way of business.

“I don’t go after people I meet for business, but people do sometimes call you back once they know what business you’re in,” he says.

Georges-Alexandre Bastien, another Conservative candidate who was up against now former prime minister Paul Martin in the Quebec riding of LaSalle-Émard, had a similar experience with clients on the campaign.

“This is a small community and everyone deals with political differences,” says Bastien, an independent life insurance and investment advisor. “You have to respect each other.”

He says some of his clients helped him out with a few campaign dollars or put up signs. In the end, Bastien finished third behind the Bloc Québécois and Martin, who swept the riding, taking about 50% of the popular vote.

“I’m going to try again for sure because Paul Martin is retiring,” vows Bastien, who started selling life insurance in 1977 for Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. before striking out on his own in 1982. His business is predominantly life and disability insurance and RRSPs.

A good friend and mentor took care of his clients while he was pounding the pavement. “We have a lot of trust between us,” says Bastien, a francophone. “I asked, ‘André, would you take care of my clients for six weeks, four years, eight years or 20 years — I don’t know!’ He said, ‘Of course, no problem, Georges’.”

But a life in politics offers no promises and each candidate dealt with that problem differently. Paul Summerville, a well-known economist and investment banker formerly with Toronto-based RBC Dominion Securities Inc. and TD Securities Inc. , committed himself in 2004 to at least 10 years during which he will dedicate himself to public service opportunities.

@page_break@“I believe in what mythologist Joseph Campbell has called the ‘open-ended life’,” he says. “It was my wife who said, ‘Don’t look at me when you’re 80 and say you wanted to go into politics’.”

It helped that he had become financially independent in 2003, he admits. “To some extent, I was able to write my own ticket,” says Summerville, a New Democratic Party candidate in the Toronto riding of St. Paul’s. He finished third behind former Liberal cabinet member Carolyn Bennett, who held her seat easily with almost 60% of the vote, and broadcast journalist Peter Kent, a Conservative.

Even though the first 72 weeks of his decade-long commitment ended with an election loss, Summerville says that, overwhelmingly, the experience was positive.

“In my case, the decision to run for the NDP offended some friends who aren’t my friends anymore,” says Summerville, who has returned to Victoria after running in a riding in which he used to live. “That being said, I literally met tens of thousands of people as a consequence of my decision. If you’re considering doing this, my advice is do it — as long as you can be your own person.”

Summerville’s education, professional experience and influence also put him a position to help craft the NDP’s financial platform and change the Canadian political landscape a little bit. He describes a moment during the campaign when he was in the media spotlight on CBC Television’s Politics, arguing that the NDP wouldn’t allow the Tories to run a deficit.

“Everyone on the panel chuckled. And Don Newman [the host] said, ‘Uh huh.’ But he got it,” says Summerville. “This was the first time that I can remember where the NDP ran a campaign during which they were never called on the economy. That’s pretty cool stuff, not to inflate my impact.”

Mark Holland, the incumbent who retained the Ontario riding of Ajax-Pickering for the Liberals, says that candidates with financial services backgrounds can bring a lot to the table in government or Parliament.

“I think we bring general understanding of how things work practically and how policies will impact markets and the economy because you’ve seen it from the other side,” says Holland, who had been an advisor with RBC Dominion Securities and CIBC before he began his life in politics in 1997, when he ran for councillor with the City of Pickering — and won. “You might have a better understanding of what policy will mean.”

Holland has served on the finance committee, bringing his understanding of the Canadian financial services industry to issues such as last year’s foreign content ruling, bank mergers, and taxation. He believes debt management is the most pressing financial issue today

As a municipal politician, Holland worked part-time as an advisor and gradually passed clients off to colleagues — a transition, he says, that was “rather seamless.” Voters elected him to federal Parliament in the 2004 federal election and he devoted himself completely to politics. He says that his business contacts seemed to respect his decision to run as a Liberal. “I had good relationships with people and they were supportive; there wasn’t any friction there,” he says.

Advisors interested in public life might find that it’s familiar turf, he adds, because clients and voters both trust someone else with their money, in effect. Thus, Holland says, the client-advisor relationship is similar to a parliamentarian’s relationship with his constituency.

“At the end of the day, they’re putting you in charge of making their lives better and working to improve their situation,” he says. IE