Justin Trudeau meeting with his new caucus for the first time, following the 2015 federal election. Photo credit: Adrian Wyld, The Canadian Press.

On election night 2011, newly-elected Québec MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau was ridiculed for being out of the country on election night, celebrating her 27th birthday in Las Vegas. Moreover, Ms. Brosseau was attacked in the media and by opposition MPs for never having stepped foot in her Berthier-Maskinongé riding during the entirety of the 35-day election campaign, for being a unilingual English-speaking ‘paper candidate’ — a ‘poteau’ in French slang — in a riding that was, and is, almost universally French speaking.
A 2011 op-ed in the National Post criticized Ms. Brosseau’s inexperience, writing that she was “an extreme example of what happens when people sign up to run for a party with little or no expectation of actually winning.” Yet, despite all, on election night 2011, Ms. Brosseau handily defeated incumbent Bloc Québécois Member of Parliament Guy André, former provincial Liberal MNA Francine Gaudet and three other candidates, winning a plurality, with 22,484 votes, representing 39.3% of all the votes cast.

Ruth Ellen Brosseau was recognized by her fellow MPs in 2014 as Parliament’s hardest working MP. Ms. Brosseau, representing the riding of Berthier-Maskinongé, was elected to a second term in office on October 19th, 2015. Photo credit: Globe and Mail.

Yet, even given all of the above, and what many in the political class considered to be Ms. Brosseau’s “sordid past”, at the conclusion of 2015’s ruinous for the NDP 78-day election campaign, Ruth Ellen Brosseau — the failed university student and vegetarian single mother turned MP — upped her vote over 2011, raking in 42.24% of the vote, handily defeating all comers, as she secured a second term as MP for Berthier-Maskinongé.
No mean feat that, when the New Democrat Party caucus in Québec was all but decimated, crushed on election night October 19th 2015, as the NDP Québec caucus was reduced from 58 seats out of the province’s 75 seats, to only 16 Québec seats out of 81 seats, of which Ms. Brosseau’s was one.

“I was tagged the ‘Vegas girl’, and hoped from day one that I would lose that identity,” says the now fluently bilingual Brosseau.

“With my win in the 2015 election, the fact that I not only won my riding for a second term, but that I was able to secure more votes and up my percentage win, demonstrates that over the course of the past four years I have gained the trust of the people I’ve been elected to serve — through hard work and being present in my riding for all of my constituents, as their champion and liaison to government, that through my continuing dedication to the people I serve — who like myself, live and work and raise their families in the riding — while working with a first-rate constituency team, together we have been able to accomplish much, to build on our successes, which makes me so, so very happy.”

On the day of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first meeting with his mostly newly-elected 184-member caucus — 156 MPs were elected for the first time — just one day after the Prime Minister and his cabinet were sworn in at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, the Liberal party leader told his party’s MPs …

“I need each and every one of you to remember one thing. Regardless of the committees you’re on, the roles you have, regardless of party demands, and the partisanship that will continue to exist in this House … your one job, that you cannot ever forget, is to be a strong voice in service of the people who sent you here from your constituencies.”

And so it is. As the newly elected rookie MPs, from all parties, set about to get a handle on just what it means to be a member of Parliament, Ruth Ellen Brosseau’s story should become the instructive story of merit, that through it all, through all of the partisanship in the House of Commons and on the Hill, the prime directive always is to “serve your constituents well”, for that is what is going to get you re-elected to a second term in office.

Last December, MPs paid tribute to the House security team for their efforts during the October shooting on Parliament Hill. Photo credit: Adrian Wyld, The Canadian Press

For rookie MPs, the transition to life as a federal politician will no doubt prove ‘educational’, if more than a little daunting, overwhelming and, as they burn the midnight oil, stressful. For rookie MPs must hire staff — both in Ottawa, and in their riding — sign a lease for a constituency office, find a place to live in the nation’s capital, sign up for remuneration and benefits, be briefed on parliamentary protocols, and try not to get lost in the Centre Block in search of the bathroom, among other immediate tasks.
All told, there are 214 new MPs (of which 17 are former MPs but weren’t sitting in the last Parliament) in the 338-seat House of Commons.

Deputy House of Commons Clerk Marc Bosc (seen here in his office) has a few tips for new members of Parliament. Photo credit: Wayne Cuddington, Ottawa Citizen.

Last week, the newly-elected MPs participated in an administrative orientation session, the first of two being held for new MPs. A second session on parliamentary procedures will be held shortly before the House of Commons sits on December 3rd.

“It can all be quite daunting. There’s a lot of information to absorb. It’s not easy for them to arrive here with all the things happening to them all at once,” said Marc Bosc, acting Clerk of the House of Commons, in an interview with Ottawa Citizen Parliament Hill reporter, Jason Fekete.

“The burden is very heavy. Members’ time is spoken for almost from the minute they arrive here. If it’s not caucus, it’s committee work, or foreign travel, or constituency work. It’s a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job if you let it control you to that extent. There’s no limit to the amount of work you can do.”

A multi-party panel of three long-serving and former MPs — re-elected Conservative MP Gordon Brown (Leed-Grenville), former Liberal MP Ted Hsu (Kingston and the Islands), and re-elected New Democrat MP Carol Hughes (Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing) — held a session last week with the rookies to share their experiences and provide advice.
One of the areas the veteran and former MPs addressed was maintaining a proper work-life balance. Parliament Hill, for many years, has been rife with broken marriages and personal struggles. In the interview with Mr. Fekete, Marc Bosc told the reporter that if he were to offer one piece of advice to new MPs, it would be: Don’t neglect yourself.

“It’s easy when you get here to forget about self care. It’s important to have a good work-life balance, and a lot of MPs have to pay attention to that because it’s easy to get sucked into the vortex of receptions and events, and lose sight of what’s important in your life, whether it be exercise or your family or both,” Bosc said. “Those members who are most successful obviously do a lot of constituency work but they also have some balance and carve out time for themselves and their families.”

Steep learning curve, long days, a committee workload on Parliament Hill (and all that reading) will no doubt cause some of the new MPs to wonder what they’ve gotten themselves into. Some will burn out — which, one would have to think, played some role in the NDP’s loss of 42 seats in Québec — while others will take to their new life as a swan takes to water.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, holding his son Hadrien, as his wife Sophie and two children Xavier, left, and Ella-Grace wave to a crowd of supporters during a rally Sunday, October 4, 2015 in Brampton, Ontario. Photo credit: Paul Chiasson, The Canadian Press

Generational change in Ottawa, gender parity in the new Liberal cabinet, 25,000 Syrian refugees — 47% of whom will be children — on their way to Canada (perhaps, even before year’s end), a new climate change policy, the long overdue end of the war on soft drugs, a new system for electing MPs to Ottawa on the near horizon and certainly in time for the next federal election in 2019, a programme for the realization of new light rail transit infrastructure in our cities, and the promise of an open, transparent and responsive government in Ottawa that will serve the interests of all Canadians — make no mistake, this is an exciting time in Canada’s history, in the lead-up to the 150-year anniversary of our country, in 2017 (the celebration of which has been tasked to Trudeau confidante, Mélanie Joly).
This blush of first love, honeymoon period in the political life of Canada that we’re all experiencing is, for all but the most dour of critics, nothing less than intoxicating. There is governing to be done, and a Canada to be transformed, so that we may recognize, once again, Canada as she is as a nation — recapturing who we once were and who we will be again and will remain, what we stand for as a nation, and the values we hold most dear, not just as a nation but in our warm, collective relations with one another.
We are our sisters and brothers keepers — let us hope and pray that the 214 MPs newly-elected to Ottawa from all parties, as well as the 124 returning Members of Parliament, work together in service of us all, in their constituencies, and in the House of Commons and on Parliament Hill.
For this is our Canada we want to reclaim — for each & every one of us, in every age group, from every ethnic community, from old stock Canadians to immigrants old and new, for every person along the gender variant spectrum, for every woman, man and child for whom Canada is home.

This past Wednesday, there was something vaguely romantic, a nostalgia-inducing cinematic, neo-realist quality to the proceedings that occurred when Canadians were able to see Justin Trudeau, his wife Sophie Grégoire, their two older children, Ella-Grace and Xavier, by their side, and the thirty new, incoming cabinet ministers strolling in behind the Trudeau family, all of them ambling together down the driveway toward Rideau Hall, Canada’s government house, blessed by the sun and the 3500-strong throng of supporters, on an unseasonably warm mid-autumn Ottawa morning. And then, when young Trudeau son Hadrien, just a year old, ran towards his father, jumping into his arms, seeing his father and mother light up with smiles … well, you couldn’t help but tear up at this most human scene.
Contrast the above warmly inviting familial scene with the 2006 first capturing of Stephen Harper with his two children heading off to school on the day after Mr. Harper became our 22nd Prime Minister — stiff and unyielding, formally shaking his son Ben’s hand as if he’d never met him before, with no hug for his then six-year-old tow-headed daughter, Rachel.
Make no mistake, dear and constant reader, Camelot has come to Canada.
If the scene described in the first paragraph above was captured in a Hollywood movie, you’d likely be caused to reflect about the unreality of it all — but, Canadians, this is in point of fact our new human-scale Canada, the new activist Canada, as Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal Party house leader and boyhood chum of the Prime Minister, constructed the early days of “Trudeau the younger’s” sunny ways incoming federalist administration.
The National Post’s John Ivison lauded “the positive symbolism” of the incoming Trudeau administration, “the atmosphere providential and full of possibility, and a powerful antidote to the severe, austere Harper years.”
As was to be expected, the first question in the scrum held on Parliament Hill following the swearing-in ceremony and the first meeting of the Trudeau cabinet, referenced the election commitments of the Liberal party on proportional representation, and a time frame for the regulation and legalization of marijuana — both commitments remain at the top of the government’s agenda, Mr. LeBlanc said, reinforcing to the assembled reporters that the Liberal government would move both pieces of legislation within the first 18 months of the new Trudeau administration.
The very next day, two of Canada’s more powerful ministers of the Crown — Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains, accompanied by Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Jean-Yves Duclos — set about to announce to Canadians that the new government would reinstate Statistic Canada’s long-form census.

“We need good, reliable data,” stated Mr. Bains, in a media scrum. “We know the history of the last government, who were very much focused on ideology,” he said. “In contrast, the Liberal government is very much focused on sound, evidence-based policies, which will ensure that policy development in Canada will be driven by good evidence and quality data.”

Activist, indeed, and we’re all the better for it, with much more to come.

Jody Wilson Raybould, Justice Minister and Attorney-General of Canada. In the picture above, the then B.C. Regional Chief — at a high-stakes meeting between Prime Minister Stephen Harper, working with a delegation of First Nations leaders — successfully argued last January for an update on Canada’s policy on comprehensive aboriginal claims.

Much of the media focus in the first couple of days of the new Trudeau administration focused on two newly-appointed cabinet ministers hailing from British Columbia, Justice Minister and Attorney-General of Canada, and Member of Parliament for the newly-created riding of Vancouver-Granville, Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Harjit Sajjan, Canada’s new very able and well-experienced Defence Minister, a very real Canadian braveheart.
A CBC archive video, referencing Ms. Raybould-Wilson when she was a child, and making the rounds on social media on Thursday, focused on a 32-year-old exchange between First Nations leader Bill Wilson, the father of the newly sworn-in federal Justice Minister, and then prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the father of Canada’s newly sworn-in PM, Justin Trudeau.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sajjan, in broad and supportive media coverage in the first 48 hours of the new governmental administration has emerged in the eyes of many as a Canadian hero, reporters and members of the opposition alike waxing poetic about the new minister as a “true badass” whose work in the military in Afghanistan yielded crucial intelligence on the Taliban defences.

Harjit Singh Sajjan is a decorated Lt Colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces who has served four tours of duty in Bosnia and Kandahar, Afghanistan.

A defeated opposition weighs in on Canada’s new government
Contrast the first impressions of the new government, the conduct of a newly accessible Prime Minister, and cabinet ministers prepared to answer all questions put to them by the media, with yesterday’s coverage of the increasingly dour and hard-hearted leader of Canada’s third-party, the New Democratic Party’s Tom Mulcair — who could never pull off the kind of hope and change message the new government embodies. All the bearded one had to say was that it was the NDP who are the progressive party of change, not the Liberals, and it was he and his shadow cabinet who held the Harper government to account, while Mr. Trudeau went “gallivanting” across Canada, an “absent figure” on Parliament Hill. True — but who cares? Yawwnnn … yesterday’s news. Mr. Mulcair: you lost the election — a little humility might be in order, if not a statement of outright mea culpa.

NDP leader Tom Mulcair at his first post-election press conference, readying himself to sing his favourite tune by The Beatles, “I’m A Loser”.

You could hear, as well, in Thursday’s NDP rhetoric what the tone of the first day of a New Democratic Party administration might have been, not “sunny ways”, but rather rhetoric focused on statements not dissimilar to, “Ewww, the books are way worse than we expected. We’re going to have to hold off on that change-y thing we were talking about. Not to mention, it’s a cruel world out there — maybe we oughta rethink our position on repealing Bill C51.” With the NDP it was always thus, dark statements devoid of hope, and a seeming inability to capture the public’s imagination.

Ain’t exactly “sunny days” for Canada’s new leader of the official opposition, and interim Conservative Party leader, the virtually unilingual Rona Ambrose.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have elected Ayn Rand-loving Rona Ambrose as their interim leader, and leader of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, hardly a departure from what came before (i.e. the secretive Stephen Harper), who took only two questions when the announcement of her new position was made public, the “scrum” cut short when Ms. Ambrose’s faltering, and hardly up to par, French became all too evident, as she couldn’t answer questions put to her in Canada’s “other” official language — one can just imagine how many questions in French will be placed to Ms. Ambrose in the House in the days to come; it ain’t gonna be pretty, folks.
The takedown has already begun
From Andrew Coyne’s ludicrous, regressive column in the National Post, taking Mr. Trudeau to task for appointing a cabinet that had as one of its goals gender parity, to Christie Blatchford’s takedown of the positive coverage of Trudeau’s “ascension to the throne” in the same, right-wing rag, reporters across all media have proved more than cynical about the opening days of the Trudeau administration, from the “pageantry” of the opening day, to the news that five of the female ministers in the Trudeau cabinet are not, in fact, full-fledged ministers but “junior” ministers of state who must report to senior ministers to sign off on legislation.
On the latter issue above, a spokesperson for the Trudeau government stated emphatically that although it is, at present, contrary to the Act that governs such things, the appointed ministers of state will become, and are to be considered by Canadians to be full-fledged ministers of the crown in the Trudeau cabinet, rather than junior ministers, that each new minister will be compensated as such (note: ministers of state receive $60,000 per year on top of the $167,000 MP salary, while full ministers receive $80,000 — looks like legislation to enforce the claims of the spokesperson will be on the legislative agenda when Parliament resumes on December 3rd).
In the early days of the new Justin Trudeau-led Liberal government, expectations have been set impossibly high — no government, not even that of the affable and approachable Mr. Trudeau, could possibly live up to the expectations for the …

“… most open, transparent and consultative government in Canadian history, a government that will act upon the wishes of all Canadians for a fairer and more just Canada, where child poverty will once and for all be eradicated, where equality of opportunity for all Canadians will carry the day, where Canadians will feel safe and secure within our borders in a too often uncertain world, a Canada where there will be a focus on the environment and the taking of very real measures to reduce the effects of climate change in Canada and across our globe, where the war on drugs will finally come to an end, and where the voices of Canadians will be heard and felt at the ballot box as Canada moves forward to an electoral system based on proportional representation, where every Canadian’s vote will count. These, and the more than 300 commitments the Liberal government has made to Canadians will come to pass — patience will be required, but make no mistake, real change is on its way in Canada.”

Camelot — a fantastical realm of romance and possibility, in our Canada.
Let us hope, for all our sakes, that the most positive aspects of Camelot come to pass, and not the failed idealism of the Arthurian legend, that change becomes papably real in Canada in the months and years to come, to be reflected in the social and economic experience of all Canadians.