At Times, It's Worth It
During a hectic day of events yesterday, two telephone messages within an hour of each other helped me to understand once again why being a member of Parliament can be a remarkably rewarding experience.During a large-scale economic forum in London I received a text message that was deeply moving. Maclean's magazine had posted a picture of a recent trip my wife and I took to Sicily to retrace my father's footsteps during World War Two. I was photograhed kneeling in front of some gravestones of Canadians killed during the early days of the invasion. It had been a moving moment for me but I had left it at that. The text was from a citizen in Chatham, Ontario who stated that he had been researching in an effort to get the details as to where one of his family members had been killed in Sicily but not all the pieces had come together yet. To his shock he saw the name of that person on the gravestone in the picture. Another piece fell into place for him. He had left his number, so I called him immediately and learned of the entire story. He is hoping to visit Sicily in 2013 to visit that sacred family place. We agreed that I would send him all my pictures and the video I had taken there to send to Peter MacKay and he, in turn, would keep me informed of his progress. Full credit goes to Mitchell Raphael of Maclean's for putting that picture and some of the story in the magazine last week. Without knowing it, Mitchell helped to bring about some closure.And then while at a press conference for the expansion of our Ivey Business School in London, I received an urgent message from one of my firefighter colleagues requesting help. His wife had gone to Cuba last week with some colleagues and began feeling ill. Her stomach began to fill with poison from what they presumed was a ruptured appendix and the firefighter was called to summon him to that holiday destination to bring his wife home. As captain of the rescue unit here in the city, he couldn't help but call it a "rescue mission." But he arrived only to discover she had died while he was en route. His world fell apart. He returned home to prepare for bringing his wife to her final resting place, but troubles ensued when Cuban officials couldn't find her passport. My colleague Dave phoned Foreign Affairs and everyone else he could to get assistance. When he called me, this normally unflappable individual was wondering what to do. My staff and I looked into his situation and are working with Foreign Affairs to get everything done expeditiously. It's important to note that government departments have worked well in offering their assistance. And my friend, unsure of how everything worked, could now concentrate on grieving with his family without those distractions that would only make things worse. My heart goes out to him ... and them.Politics is tough and at times the partisanship of it all seems to lead to some giant national cul de sac. But on this particular fall day, being an MP mattered and people as far ranging as Foreign Affairs officials or a writer for a national magazine brought people's lives together. These are the kinds of things MPs from every party do every day and it's why they're in it in the first place. For me, it was a good day and I thank my constituents for the privilege.