Everyone in the room sensed that Paul Martin would be prime minister soon enough.  There was an excitement in the air as my wife and I attended a London, Ontario event where Martin, as finance minister, was scheduled to speak on healthcare. His arrival was met with enthusiasm and he quickly warmed to his audience.  Partway into his address a door closed at the rear of the hall and someone quietly entered.  People whispered to one another, “It's Jeffrey Simpson.”  While the audience might have appreciated that one of the country's best-known journalists would attend their event, the effect on Paul Martin was immediate.  The finance minister is known as an engaging speaker, but his connection with his audience that evening dissipated as his eye continued to follow Simpson's progress up the side of the hall.  He was more careful, not as bellicose or partisan.  While the journalist jotted down a few items in his notebook, it was clear to everyone that his presence had changed the dynamics. The ultimate moral of this recounting is how experienced journalism can affect our politics.  This wasn't some frantic or wannabe reporter using social media to raise his profile.  He was instead an objective witness to events and his insights served to remind the political establishment that accountability still mattered and that a reckoning would surely result the moment political figures ignored that responsibility. When the Globe and Mail announced this week that Jeffrey Simpson was signing off following a stellar career as a columnist there were the expected plaudits.  Starting at the Globe in 1974, he soon became a national affairs columnist.  He was no wide-eyed idealist, having earned degrees from the London School of Economics and Queen's University. There was a kind of serious elegance about him that easily translated to his writing style.  The gravitas he exuded served effective notice to the political elites that he saw through their trappings and partisan rhetoric.  And he was recognized by his peers as someone who could spend hours researching a topic and just as long in crafting his words that ultimately became his columns.  He was awarded all three of Canada's noted literary prizes, awarded numerous honourary doctorates, and became recognized as one of the country's leading thinkers on public policy. So, yes, Simpson has enjoyed an accomplished career, having authored six books in the process.  But it was his effect on the Canadian policy establishment, including the politics that so often diffused it, that might prove his ultimate legacy. Simpson's 42-year career coincided with massive changes in the news and publishing industries – a transformation that has redefined journalism in the process.  Yet his columns remained remarkably sanguine when it seemed as though everyone else was heading off in all directions attempting to catch the latest trend.  Knowing effective policy and good politics to be the essence of a healthy democracy, he couldn't bring himself to pander to the flightiness of the age. In his The Way of the Modern World, author Craig Gay recounted the effects of modern journalism's infatuation with the immediate: “By focusing exclusively on the events of the day, journalism all but severs the connection between time and eternity. It makes the world appear to be nothing but an endless jumble of events through which it is difficult, if not impossible, to discern anything beyond the relatively base motivations of lust, calculated self-interest, and the will to power. In short, journalism is not able to communicate wisdom.” To his credit, and that of the newspaper that understood his value, Simpson refused to walk down that path.  Instead he did as he always did – engaged his readers with serious insight.  In so doing he became the embodiment of esteemed journalist Bob Woodward's observation:  “I think journalism gets measured by the quality of information it presents, not the drama or the pyrotechnics associated with us.” This year has seen the retirement of a number of dedicated columnists who believed that their craft deserved proper and serious context.  But as a nation says farewell to Jeffrey Simpson, it is aware that it is losing a refined writer who dealt with them as citizens of the mind as well as passion.  Ultimately, it will be his sage observations of accountability and watchfulness that will be missed the most in a political and bureaucratic world all too willing to spin on a dime if it would curry more public favour and influence.  We wish him a well-deserved and contented retirement, but our journey from this point forward will be all the more difficult without his elegant writings of public responsibility.   Glen Pearson was a career professional firefighter and is a former Member of Parliament from southwestern Ontario.  He and his wife adopted three children from South Sudan and reside in London, Ontario.  He has been the co-director of the London Food Bank for 29 years.  He writes regularly for the London Free Press and also shares his views on a blog entitled “The Parallel Parliament“.   Follow him on twitter @GlenPearson.