Results are in

My mother grew up in a small Alberta town. A little Ukrainian burg where English was the second language. When her younger brother got a fancy gov't job the RCMP did the rounds to check him out. It is a tale, still, that day the men from the Gouvermendt came round to ask about Vladmir, no matter that he'd changed his name to something much more Anglo by then.

As many a Canadian knows, men from the Gouvermendt are not really to be engaged. The ones in power are to be equally respected, suspected and feared. Those on my Baba's side lived in Canada long enough to know men interred for their former citizenship in nation's disdained and fled. On my papa's side the memories of imperialist terrors were as fresh as the day a sister might be attacked or a big brother led to the gulag gates.

On my paternal side I am lucky to have a connect with the right to representation and to represent. A tradition -- in my lifetime -- of opportunity; to be heard and to participate. I am glad that the alchemy came to me that I could work on this campaign.


I stood tonight in a musty elementary school gymnasium listening to a friend's name be called out most often, ballot after ballot. A man who once carried a box of my underwear has been elected!! A member of the family who were the first to visit us as new parents is now a member of parliament!!!! Believe it or not as of tonight we can say one of those men in the Gouvermendt is a friend of ours. That's something.