My friend Glenn J. Nashen and I each wear a few hats. I work at the English Montreal School Board as the communications and marketing specialist, serve on Côte Saint-Luc city council and write for a number of newspapers, including The Suburban, The Jewish Tribune, The Montrealer, The Jewish Standard and the Montreal Jewish Magazine. Glenn is the director of public affairs and communications for the Jewish General Hospital and a city councillor as well in Côte Saint-Luc. He was first elected 20 years ago while I came aboard in 2005, having covered the city for the local newspaper and then handled public relations assignments for more than two decades.
Glenn and I are naturally very much enamored with the political process – locally, provincially, federally and globally. During the 11 years I worked for the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), I frequently went to Ottawa. It was this body’s role to represent the Jewish community before government.
Last week we spent an enlightening day in Ottawa, starting a round of meetings at 10 a.m. and continuing through nightfall.
Glenn and I began our day with a trip to the Ottawa National Advocacy Office of CJC. When I worked for the organization, the head office was in Montreal. Now, the major operation emanates out of Toronto. Eric Vernon, Joshua Rotblatt and Susan Marcus hold the fort in Ottawa, sharing space with the Canada-Israel Committee. (Pictured at the right are Glenn, Joshua, Eric and myself). Joshua is director of operations and Eric, director of government relations. Only a few days after I started working at CJC my boss, Jack Silverstone, informed me that we were headed to Ottawa for a meeting with the federal minister of justice. He told me to let him out of the car at Parliament Hill, park the car at the Chateau Laurier Hotel and go find Eric in the lobby. That marked the beginning of a wonderful friendship between Eric and I, which continues today. I may have left CJC 12 years ago, yet sitting down with Joshua and Eric felt so natural. I am glad we have kept in touch and they perform important duties for the community.
Our first meeting on Parliament Hill was with Justin Trudeau, the Liberal MP for Papineau. Justin, of course, is the son of our late, great prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. I first met him about six years ago when I invited him to come speak at a school board function. Talk about a man who can keep his audience spellbound.
Justin (pictured at the right with Glenn) remains a regular at local schools and not only those in his riding. There is a great demand for his presence across the country. He seemed appropriately comfortable in his Confederation Building office.
“I am abashed to admit how good this feels,” he told us. “Every aspect of this job is so incredibly satisfying.”
How would his father feel if he could see him now? “About a year before my dad died I realized that politics would be a possible path for me one day,” he recalled. “I knew that I needed to talk to him about this or I would regret it. Well, it turned out to be 10 minutes of the most awkward conversation I’d ever had. You see, he had basically already answered this question in the way he raised my brothers and I. ‘Know your values and principles,’ he would always say. He certainly did say that we should not do anything because we thought it was our appropriate path and with that in mind I know that he was extremely proud that I became a teacher.”
I personally believe that within the next decade Justin will be the leader of the Federal Liberal Party and ultimately our prime minister.
We were delighted when the Federal Minister of Health, Leona Aglukkaq (below) , agreed to see us.
Every step of the way these last four years he has been supported by Neil Drabkin, a lawyer and long time Côte Saint-Luc resident, as his chief of staff. Neil has a significant background in the political process, going back to the era of Brian Mulroney as prime minister. At that time Neil (right, with Glenn and I), was a senior policy advisor and deputy chief of staff to the minister of citizenship. He has also been a Tory candidate on a few occasions.
Via the English Montreal School Board I edit a special needs newspaper called Inspirations (www.emsb.qc.ca/inspirations). With this in mind I was particulary anxious to meet two cabinet ministers: Steven Fletcher and Diane Finley.
Finley told us that when she was in opposition that the headquarters for the Office for Disability Issues was ironically not accessible for the handicapped. “There were actually two offices at the time,” she said. “Now we have one office across the river in Gatineau . Not only is it accessible, it is in fact a showcase for accessibility.”
I must say that I came home from these meetings very impressed with the Parliamentarians and their senior staff whom we interacted with. They have all been invited to come visit some of our schools on future visits to Montreal.
