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Friday, October 11, 2019 3 Brooklin Town Crier and started chatting and it was so weird. Why did she want to talk to me? Was she spying on me? I didn't know what to say. Can I say this or I don't know if I should do this... It was, like, stop it, it's just regular people. What was the effect on home life? I still think we're trying to recover, to be honest. We've just recovered only because after losing in 2014, my depression got really bad and I owned a business and it suffered. When the depression got really bad, my husband said we have enough in savings and a little money here and there. And honestly we blew the entire war chest trying to win. We had to move, we downsized when the market was good to pay back some stuff. And then in January we moved to another home in Whitby, so we've moved twice since. You have to put your whole life into it. Not to say that everybody needs to do that nor that people should. I really wasn't home. Even when I was in the constituency, I was doing events all day Saturday or Sunday. You get off the train, go to a couple of events. As Parliamentary Secretary, I'd work Sunday to Friday, come home Fri afternoon, go to a couple of events, do events all say Saturday, try to see my kids on Sun morning, and be on a train by 4 pm Sunday afternoon. My son, the youngest, found it difficult. When I started everything, he was 7. But somebody gave me some advice really early on. It'll be difficult and he's going to cry when you leave on Sunday. But just make sure that if you tell him you're going to be home on Friday night, you show up on Friday night. Don't miss it. I kept that piece of advice. Any culture shock? The first time I stepped into the House of Commons was when I started working there. I'd never been to Ottawa before. It's a lonely place. It's a very competitive world where nobody's the teacher's pet. You have just one teacher. And the people who don't like him are trying to bring him down. I always saw the job as a borrowed job. I know it didn't belong to me; it belonged to the people of Whitby. If I did a good job, they would give it back to me. Or if I didn't, I wouldn't get it again. I wasn't sure I was tied to it. I just wanted to do a good job and I knew it wasn't mine to keep. Do you recall your first moments in the house? This may sound ridiculous and people told me I'd be so blown away. And I wasn't. It was just a place. The thing for me was the realization when I was being sworn in in the Reading Room of Centre Block. There's a massive picture of the Fathers of Confederation at the front of the room. The clerk stands up and the room is packed. People have driven in from all over and flown in from Grenada. He starts by saying that every single person who's been a member of Parliament has written their name into this record into history. And I'm sitting there, this little black girl, with this life size picture, and that was the real part where I thought, "Oh my god, what have I done? There's some serious responsibility here. This is not some little joke job. This is a job where people are depending on you." That was the moment where I lost my breath and I needed to take a moment. Proud moments? One of my proudest moments was after disclosing my issues with mental health, advocating, and the next budget, seeing a $5 billion commitment towards mental health for young people. I've heard Barack Obama speak on David Letterman's Netflix show. He said being a politician has less to do about regulations and legislation and more about raising awareness, moving the status quo and changing culture. Which constituency office issues struck a chord ? Immingration issues. It's incredible how much we worked on. I intervened on a couple of cases, ones where families are being split apart and there's no reason for that to happen and I had to intervene with the minister. I will lose it on that. There was one situation with a family being sponsored by a church group in Whitby and had been in a refugee camp in Ghana for 27 years. 27 years! The church had been working on this for years and years to bring them over. When they came to my office, they thanked me for doing this. No! This is my job. I get paid to do this. I need to thank you. I was really struck by the generosity of the human spirit in this job. And that's what I'll miss it the most. What are public misunderstandings of MPs? That in the riding, we're just chillin' at home. We don't do that. We're constantly working. And when we're not working, we advocate. When I come home, there's a small window when I'm 100% connected to my family. Then I'm writing speeches for the next day or researching something for a bill or reading a piece of legislation or helping another colleague. Unfortunately what we see are the little snippets from Question Period where it looks like a gong show. What did you learn about yourself? I think that was the most profound lesson. I honestly thought when I got there, I'm a grown woman, I've lived, I've run a business, I'm smart. Then I realized the one thing I needed to learn was that what I said to people at the door, I needed to do it. I said I was going to be authentic and was going to go out the same way I came in. There was a tremendous amount of responsibility. But I actually loved doing this. I loved hearing people's concerns. I loved coming up with a tangible solution for them. I loved telling them their tax or immigration case is being handled. For me, it was learning about putting service above yourself and learning that that's not just a slogan. It's a thing I just loved to do. Tough last few weeks? Yes. It's been a terribly emotional couple of weeks. I get teary-eyed talking about it. I'm really going to miss advocating for people. I'm going to miss those moments where people are happy and smiling because you helped. Continued from page 2 Brian Dias - NDP It's been an incredibly exciting few weeks, knocking on doors. I am ready to serve this community in Ottawa. People are worried about the cost of living. We're facing serious national issues like the Climate Crisis, that the Liberals and Conservatives haven't sufficiently addressed. The Liberals made big promises in 2015, but Canadians did not get the changes they were expecting. They've disappointed people by not making life more affordable and making decisions that helped big corporations, but not the people they're supposed to represent. After four years of the Liberals in power, young people are still struggling to pay for their educations and move into their first homes. There are still boil water advisories on reserves and kids are still growing up in unsafe, overcrowded homes and schools. Justin Trudeau was even found guilty twice of breaking Canada's conflict of interest law and we're still far from meeting our Paris climate commitments. The Conservatives are offering up the same Stephen Harper playbook, but Canadians aren't interested in cuts and mean-spirited politics. They're talking a big game about making life more affordable, but at the end of the day they'll put cuts ahead of families just like Doug Ford has done. New Democrats are in it for you. We're on the side of working Canadians, not the big corporations and lobbyists. We know that Canadians want a more affordable life, services like universal pharmacare and action on the big issues, like reconciliation and the climate crisis. That's why we're going to bring in pharmacare and dental care. That's why we're going to save families over a thousand dollars every year on their phone and hydro bills. That's why we're going to stop profiting off of our young people's student loans and make sure that cost isn't a barrier for any bright student that wants to work hard. That's why we're going to push forward with a bold plan on climate that creates over 300,000 jobs and doesn't leave any communities behind. That's what we'll fight for in Ottawa, no matter what happens this election. A strong team of New Democrats can make all the difference for you and your families on the issues that matter. That's why I'm asking you to send me there to fight for you. I'm ready to work for Whitby. With different choices we can get better results. Let's take better care of each other. Did not submit : Todd McCarthy - Conservative Paul Slavchenko - Green Party Ryan Turnbull - Liberal Editor's Note: All four candidates were contacted in September and asked to submit summaries of their platforms and how they'd help Whitby. They were given an Oct. 4 deadline. Only Brian Dias did so.