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2 Friday, Octpber 11, 2019 brooklintowncrier.com Way back around Sept. 23, at around 8:29 pm to be precise, I sent the four federal candidates for the Whitby riding a request: Kindly send the BTC a 400-word summary of your thoughts about how you'll assist Whitby if elected. I gave them an Oct. 4 deadline. It seemed like a reasonable request and, in fact, was the same kind of one I'd offered to candidates last year in the provincial and municipal elections. Sadly, only NDP candidate Brian Dias responded. We've printed his ideas in this issue. This leaves yours truly in a bit of a muddled quandary. If none of the other three can be bothered to respond or submit, what does that say? Is Brooklin not important enough? Is this paper not to their standards? Are they too busy? If so, shouldn't busy include getting their ideas out? The four gentlemen, all vying for the seat vacated by Celina Caesar- Chavannes, shared their thoughts at a Whitby Chamber of Commerce event last month. No one stunned the crowd. On the day this issue comes out, Oct. 11, they're doing the same at 10:30 am at Durham Christian Homes. I only know this not because they sent us a press release, which would have been the normal communication route, but from an email I got through someone else. Then there's this: only two candidates, Ryan Turnbull (Liberal) and Paul Slavchenko (Green Party), live in Whitby, with Turnbull having moved here shortly before the campaign. I have the impression this has become a throwaway riding, which is odd considering how close the polls have been for some time. Moreoever, the 2015 general and 2014 by elections were both decided by under 3000 votes which would indicate the riding is not a sure thing for anyone. Another interesting tidbit has to do with whether one votes for the leader or the local candidate. In our interview last week, Caesar-Chavannes said, "People vote for both the leader and the riding candidate. If we use Whitby as a test ground or petri dish, what happened was the candidate, me, went up against a two time mayor with 17 years in council. The ability of the local candidate to resonate among people was important. I feel I didn't win just because liberals voted for me; I was able to persuade other people to vote for me. There was a combination of both (leader and candidate) that I don't think we should take for granted." Or, you can take the easy route and just be wowed by the number and size of signs. Research shows they're mostly ineffective. But if you're undecided, I recommend driving Brooklin's streets and counting who's got the most. Because it would obviously mean that fellow has the best ground game with the most volunteers and the most money. So really, what else does one need to know about a candidate? Vote for...? Less than half the picture: By Richard Bercuson Foreword: Celina Caesar-Chavannes slides into her final days as Whitby's MP, sitting as an independent after a well-publicized disagreement with the Prime Minister. She agreed to share what it was like to be an MP for four years. Following the sudden death in 2014 of Jim Flaherty, she ran in the bye- election as a Liberal for the Whitby- Oshawa seat against former Whitby mayor and Conservative Party candidate Pat Perkins. Perkins won by 2,999 votes with just under 32% of eligible voters voting. However, in the 2015 general election, with Whitby as its own riding, Caesar- Chavannes won over Perkins by 1,849 votes with 70% of eligible voters casting votes. She announced last February that she would not seek re-election. Caesar-Chavannes came to Canada as a toddler from Grenada when her parents chose to "find a better life." They lived in Rexdale for a few years but, from grade three till after high school, they lived in Brampton. (edited for length) When you first thought about entering politics, what did you imagine it would be like? I actually thought about running before Flaherty died. I wanted to run against him. I was thinking that I wouldn't win the election but I'd put on a good enough campaign to challenge the establishment in Whitby to show that it could be done. When I lost (in 2014) two things happened. 1 - It made me believe that I could actually win because we had gone from 15% of the vote in 2011 to over 40%. It made me hungry. 2 - I didn't want to run the second election like a politician. The first time, in the bye election, Trudeau was here every other day. It was like a political show thing. But when I ran in the general election I wanted to run as myself as a business person who knew how to successfully manage products and I ran it as I had been running various projects in my research firm. In a party system, you're basically told how to run the campaign, what materials to use. I chose not to use any material with Trudeau's face on it. I made a choice not to have Kathleen Wynne come out which the Ontario people were not happy with. I understood the riding and what people here would appreciate. I wasn't about to be another gimicky politician who had people come to sort of rally the troops. No, Celina's going to show up on your doorstep and tell you she's going to be authentic. What would people be surprised to learn about running for office? How hard it is. For me it was mentally, physically, emotionally draining. At every door I was scared that somebody would not like me or say something nasty. It never happened. I never really got over it. But people were so nice. I was still afraid to say hello. That's never changed. I had a lot of great volunteers so just meeting them was fun. During the campaign we'd have these 5th graders come in and want to help. So we found jobs for them. I thought it was great, the level of civic engagement, especially among younger people and older people. It was remarkable and it actually challenged me to be even more engaged. How does one prepare for a federal election? There are practical things to prepare for. You're going to knock on a helluva lot of doors and speak to tens of thousands of people. I may have knocked on 20,000 doors and needed to be at so many events. Your life no longer belongs to you; it belongs to the taxpayer. Even before the election because you want to be seen at events. You want to be seen as someone who could do it. This is something I appreciated from the first election to the second, that you don't need to be a typical politician to run. You use your past experience. I used my business experience. But the battle is run on the ground. If you're not prepared to knock on thousands of doors, don't even bother. There's a lot to consider. You have to be up on your current events. You have to know stuff about stuff in general. Because people ask you all kinds of things at the door. And you need to know the difference between federal, provincial and municipal. People will talk to you about speed bumps as much as they will about foreign policy. You win. How are you contacted about next steps? That was the question I had on the night I won. Now what? That for me was the scariest moment because up till then it was just win this project. And then suddenly, what am I supposed to do now? Within the first couple of months, you get orientation and training in Ottawa. They have this mega firehose open and the information is coming at you at full speed. So the first thing I decided to do was not be the smartest person in the room. I hired a legislative assistant and I wanted to find someone who had done it before. But the information came in such massive amounts that I don't think a lot of us absorbed it. Eye-openers? I would say the eye opener for me was how polarizing everything was. People were very partisan. It wouldn't be until a couple of months in that I would have my first conversation with a Conservative member. This one lady ran up to me 20,000 Doors and "A Borrowed Job" Life as Whitby's Member of Parliament Celina Caesar-Chavannes: in her own words Continued on page 3 Central Lake Ontario Conservation (CLOCA) announces that it has been awarded the Bee City Business designation by Bee City Canada, making CLOCA the 14th Bee City Business in Canada and the first Conservation Authority to receive this recognition. The Bee City designation is awarded to cities, towns, municipalities, schools, campuses, businesses, organizations that publicly declare to protect pollinators and their habitat through coordinated and collaborative actions that align with the Bee City program. CLOCA is a local, community based, environmental organization and one of 36 Conservation Authorities responsible for managing watershed resources across Ontario. It maintains pollinator gardens at three locations. Enniskillen Conservation Area's gardens have been certified as Wildlife-Friendly Habitat by the Canadian Wildlife Federation and registered as a Monarch Way Station through Monarch Watch. Each year, over 5,000 students participate in CLOCA's various Outdoor Education Programs, many of which include components on pollinators, habitats and the importance of native plants. CLOCA Designated Bee City