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13| O akville B eaver | T hursday,A ugust 30,2018 insidehalton.com 1200 Speers Rd., Unit 12, Oakville, Ont. L6L 2X4 (905) 845 - 1408 | Fax (905) 845 - 5931 | ricky@rickywong.ca Ricky Wong CPA, CA, MBA, B. Eng Ricky W DIAMONDDIAMOND DIAMONDDIAMOND Voted BestAccountant by Oakville Beaver Readers for 11 ConsecutiveYears For more information please check our website www.rickywong.ca •Accounting •Auditing • Taxation Solving Problems Since 1982 905-845-0701 Email: scott@gasfix.ca POOL HEATER REPAIR WE SERVICE & CARRY PARTS FOR: TD LAARS, JANDY, HAYWARD, RAYPAK, PENTAIR, MINI MAX, STA-RITE Manufacturer Trained Service Technicians Read our client reviews www.gasfixrepair.HomeStars.com Experience is the Difference! At a 2015 event run by home-care agency Links2Care, Halton se- niors activist Pearl Camer- on urged the audience to "seize every opportunity you have to take care and speak up on behalf of se- niors and others." Camer- on, who died July 10 at age 96, meant those words from the heart and lived them throughout her life, friends and family said af- ter her death. "She believed in speak- ing up for people who couldn't speak up for them- selves," said Tracey Mc- Kinley, who volunteered as Cameron's "friendly visi- tor" through Links2Care and quickly became her friend. "She had a very strong underlying sense of duty and integrity. It was part of her personality." Born in Panama in 1922, Cameron grew up and came of age in Trinidad, in a progressive family that encouraged her to stand up for social justice and to fol- low her dreams - despite an era when women were not prominent in professional spheres. As a board mem- ber of the family import- export business, she be- came Trinidad's first fe- male chamber of com- merce member. She worked as a newspaper re- porter and magazine edi- tor, later getting involved in the country's political sphere. Not long after her son John-Frederick was born, Cameron left her partner, a government minister from a rival political party. After learning of his involve- ment in what she saw as corruption, she chose to continue life as a single mother - a particularly bold move for the era. "That's when she decid- ed to leave Trinidad," said John-Frederick, noting his mother seemed to have no shortage of international opportunities when he was growing up. "She was known back then as a polit- ical strategist ... The arch- bishop of Trinidad once told me that she single- handedly had a school built in one of the poorest areas of (the country)." After a stint in Jamaica helping the country's prime minister sell a policy to his own party, Pearl moved to New York City in the 1960s with her son. It didn't long, though, before friends there convinced her she would be happier in Canada, said John-Fred- erick. "They said, 'You'll never become an Ameri- can (ideologically) and you'll never let your son fight an American war.'" But it was when someone introduced her to then- prime minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau's concept of "the just society" that she was convinced to settle here. "The just society will be one in which the rights of minorities will be safe from the whims of intoler- ant majorities," Trudeau said at the time. "The just society will be one in which those regions and groups which have not fully shared in the country's af- fluence will be given a bet- ter opportunity." After settling briefly in Toronto, the family moved to Tipperary Avenue in Burlington in 1973. Camer- on became active in federal and provincial politics, and in 1981 she ran for pro- vincial office in the former Burlington South riding as a Liberal. She lost to long- time Progressive Conser- vative incumbent George Kerr. John-Frederick says he remembers his mom get- ting a phone call on the night of the Liberal nomi- nation meeting while they were at home eating an ear- ly dinner. "It was a party estab- lishment member asking her not to run," he recalled. "He said, 'You're running in a community where a woman of colour can't win.' I heard her say, 'We have a very popular PC govern- ment, so I'm not going to win anyway, and we're def- initely not going to win if we nominate someone who doesn't speak to the com- munity.'" She ignored the request and won the nomination with overwhelming sup- port, her son said. In Cameron's later years, she lived in Oakville with John-Frederick. As she began losing her sight and requiring personal care, she became exposed to what she saw as deficien- cies in the public home- care system - an issue that she took on until her final days. In 2014, she hosted a public forum in Oakville, advocating for home-care workers to receive special training that would allow them to compassionately interact with their clients, no matter the clients' needs or disabilities. "She really felt that se- niors in our community need compassionate car- ing ... Someone to listen, someone to take an inter- est in them," said McKin- ley, noting they discussed the issue often. "She also realized it was a two-way street. She didn't just ex- pect people to take an inter- est in her - she took an in- terest in other people." McKinley added that, even when discussing seri- ous subjects, Cameron knew how to add levity to help the message stick. "She had a wonderful sense of humour. Even though she was a serious person and the causes she dealt with were serious, she had a wonderful sense of humour and could get people motivated through laughter." HALTON SENIORS ACTIVIST PEARL CAMERON BELIEVED IN SPEAKING UP Pearl Cameron and her dogs. Cameron family photo SAIRA PEESKER speesker@metroland.com OBITUARY CAMERON, WHO DIED JULY 10 AT AGE 96, RAN FOR PROVINCIAL OFFICE IN BURLINGTON IN 1981 SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AT INSIDEHALTON.COM