New Faces in Ottawa

[grammafreddy]

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/loca ... lumbiaHome

Surgeon, waitress, envoy among fresh faces in Ottawa
By: CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Tuesday May. 3, 2011 10:34 AM PT

With Monday's election triggering what will be a massive sea change on Parliament Hill, it's inevitable that a number of prominent MPs will be clearing out their offices and returning to civilian life, while others will be packing up and heading to their new digs in the country's capital.

Monday's vote brought down a number of giants, such as Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe. But a number of fresh faces will be filling the void, from a much-maligned cocktail waitress to a surgeon and a former high-level diplomat.

Here is a roundup of some of those newly elected MPs who will be learning the ropes on Parliament Hill.

Conservatives:

Peter Penashue (Labrador)

Penashue, a well-known Innu leader in Labrador, won a close race that at times saw him trailing incumbent Liberal Todd Russell. In fact, at one point the riding was declared as a Liberal win, but when all the polls were in it was Penashue that came out on top.

Penashue has earned a name for himself negotiating land claims on behalf of the Innu people as well as working with nickel and hydroelectric developers to ensure his people are represented.

Christopher Alexander (Ajax-Pickering)

The former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan and the United Nations gave up his career in high-level diplomacy in order to run for a seat as a Conservative. He faced a tough challenge up against outspoken Liberal Mark Holland. With Lawrence Cannon defeated in the election, Alexander would be a strong contender to take over the Foreign Affairs portfolio.

Parm Gill (Brampton-Springdale)

Gill was able to capitalize on controversy dogging incumbent candidate Ruby Dhalla who has faced down allegations she had mistreated a nanny working in her home. The case has gone to court, but hearings had to be postponed due to the election campaign. Gill's victory also shows the Conservatives' efforts to target the East Asian community, particularly in the GTA, has worked.

Kellie Leitch (Simcoe-Grey)

With a victory over former Conservative cabinet minister Helena Guergis -- who ran as an independent -- Leitch has earned her spot in Ottawa. The pediatric orthopedic surgeon has worked closely with the Conservatives to help create and implement a tax credit for families that enroll their children in fitness activities.

New Democrats:

Tyrone Benskin (Jeanne-Le Ber)

Benskin, a veteran actor, musician and director is one of the many NDP candidates vaulted to MP status amid the party's powerful surge in Quebec. Benskin, who was accused of having poor French by Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe during the campaign, has a long list of acting credits to his name, including a role co-starring in "The Boys of St. Vincent."

Ruth Ellen Brosseau (Berthier-Maskinonge)

Perhaps the most unlikely winner in the election, Brosseau took criticism earlier in the election when it was reported she had taken a vacation to Las Vegas during the campaign. It was also revealed that she lived in Ottawa where she worked as an assistant manager at a bar where her main co-worker said he had never heard her mention politics. She wasn't in Berthier-Maskinonge and appears to have done few, if any, media interviews. There is no evidence the single mom has even visited the riding.

Romeo Saganash (Abitibi - Baie-James - Nunavik - Eeyou)

The longtime Cree activist and lawyer resigned his role as a director with the Grand Council of Crees in order to run for office. The 49-year-old unseated Bloc Quebecois incumbent Yvon Levesque.

Helene Laverdiere (Laurier-Saint-Marie-Quebec)

Laverdiere, who has been posted to Washington, Senegal and Chile with Canada's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, unseated Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe in a stunning upset that saw the leader resign from his role late Monday night.

McGill University students (various Quebec ridings)

According to the McGill newspaper on Tuesday, three current students and one recent graduate are all headed to Ottawa after winning ridings in Quebec. Charmaine Borg, Matthew Dube, and Laurin Liu are all current students, according to the paper. Mylene Freeman, who also won a Quebec seat, is a recent graduate. All four will be earning the base MP salary of $157,731 per year.

Green Party

Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands)

The Green Party leader, in her third attempt to win a seat, managed to make history and become the first elected Green Party MP in Canada. May unseated Conservative incumbent Gary Lunn, the minister of state for sport. The 56-year-old lawyer and author may have a tough slog ahead of her as the lone Green MP in a Parliament dominated by the majority Conservatives.

Liberals

Ted Hsu (Kingston and the Islands)

The Liberals' lone new face on Parliament Hill is Eastern Ontario's Ted Hsu. The riding was already in Liberal hands, but Hsu got his shot at the seat after longtime MP and Speaker of the House of Commons Peter Milliken announced he was retiring. Hsu is a scientist and former trader who worked in Paris and Philadelphia, and as an executive director with Morgan Stanley in Tokyo. He spent the past few years as a stay-at-home dad.

[Al Czervic]

Well done NDP....

(Berthier-Maskinonge)

Perhaps the most unlikely winner in the election, Brosseau took criticism earlier in the election when it was reported she had taken a vacation to Las Vegas during the campaign. It was also revealed that she lived in Ottawa where she worked as an assistant manager at a bar where her main co-worker said he had never heard her mention politics. She wasn't in Berthier-Maskinonge and appears to have done few, if any, media interviews. There is no evidence the single mom has even visited the riding.

[Urbane]

Here's a fresh face for you:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/201 ... sseau.html

[Al Czervic]

Here's a fresh face for you:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/201 ... sseau.html

This will be just the beginning for good ol’ Jack Layton…..

[Urbane]

Just the beginning is right Al:

Lorne Gunter May 4, 2011

There’s an old adage, “Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.” I think NDP leader Jack Layton is about to find out the hard way just how true that is.

Lurking just beneath the surface of his party’s 103-seat win on Monday are two enormous problems: His caucus is made up mostly of neophyte MPs, many of whom may not even want to be MPs. And as the official voice of Quebec discontent, he runs the risk of seeing his newfound pularity in that province evaporate overnight if he does not do an acceptable job of playing the victim card.

Now, Jack, like most socialists is a master at playing victim politics. But he now has to play victimology on two fronts simultaneously – on behalf of soft-nationalist Quebecers and on behalf of his usual cadre of cause-pleaders in the rest of Canada. Since the two groups’ demands are often quite different, the instant Mr. Layton puts Quebec’s demands on hold long enough to take up the cause of some over-privileged, government-funded group in English Canada – like public servants – he runs the risk of Quebecers believing he is ignoring them.

He’ll be like those plate-spinners who used to be regular guests on the Ed Sullivan Show, dashing madly around the stage trying to keep 15 or 20 plates spinning precariously on top of spindly canes simultaneously.

Then there’s the little fact that upwards of half of his caucus is now made up of what we could call Stunned MPs – people who woke up Tuesday morning and were as stunned as anyone to find they had been elected as Members of Parliament.

Half of Layton’s MPs (and most of his Quebec caucus) would never have imagined themselves winning just six weeks ago, or even just two weeks ago. Now they are going to have to put their lives on hold for fours years while they perform a job they may not really have wanted.

Many of the NDP’s Quebec candidates were sacrificial lambs. They were university students, barmaids and janitors who were doing the party a favour putting their names on the ballot. Many are not from the ridings they ran in. They campaigned very little, if at all.

The most famous of these absentee candidates is Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the assistant manager of a student pub at Ottawa’s Carleton University, who doesn’t speak French but ran in a riding that is 97% francophone. She, famously, didn’t campaign in the riding and spent the end of the election vacationing in Vegas.

Clearly she never imagined herself going to Parliament, but now she has to put her real life on hold, move to her new riding, learn French and get ready to perform the gruelling job of being an MP. Imagine how thrilled she is going to be to go to her riding office a couple of times a month and listen to her constituents complain about the slow delivery of their pension cheques or their missing passports.

It’s going to be the same for a lot of the new New Democrats. They will have to quit their lives, interrupt their family relationships, move to Ottawa, set up constituency offices, hire staff and act as MPs when most of them never really wanted the job in the first place. Ideologically, they may well be among the most radical and naive members of the party, too.

I remember when I used to recruit Liberals to run in northern Alberta ridings during the National Energy Program, our first approaches were almost always to the most devout members of the party, people who were so committed to the party they were honoured to lend their names. These new New Democrats are probably largely the same kind of people, except they won and now they are real, honest-to-goodness MPs. The pressures of the job will overwhelm them, to say nothing about how their political naivety will make it hard for them to fend off attacks from their local rivals.

But these folks are now 60% of Jack Layton’s caucus. And he now has to fashion them into something approaching a functioning opposition.

Good luck with that, Jack.
nationalpost.com

[Al Czervic]

As much as we can blame Layton and the NDP for NOT recruiting and screening better candidates, it has to be pointed out that the people of Quebec all took the time to go to the polls and place an “X” on the ballot right next to the name of these very same candidates.

To me, this says far more about the mentality of voters in Quebec then it does for Jack Layton and the NDP, although clearly it will be Layton and the NDP who will get to wear this problem. I am sure it is nothing a good massage or two can’t fix mind you…..

[grammafreddy]

Re: this:

(Berthier-Maskinonge)

Perhaps the most unlikely winner in the election, Brosseau took criticism earlier in the election when it was reported she had taken a vacation to Las Vegas during the campaign. It was also revealed that she lived in Ottawa where she worked as an assistant manager at a bar where her main co-worker said he had never heard her mention politics. She wasn't in Berthier-Maskinonge and appears to have done few, if any, media interviews. There is no evidence the single mom has even visited the riding.

The incumbent is saying the woman's nomination papers are flawed - that there are people's names on it who did not nominate her. He wants an inquiry into it.