Why I Was In Toronto

by: Elijah (Gr. 8 student)

As you may have noticed I was away from school during
most of November and December this year. Some people might be wondering what I did and if it was fun or not. For this reason I would like to tell you about it.

I was a Legislative Page in Queen's Park, Ontario the location of our Provincial Government. The people inside these buildings govern Ontario as a province, covering areas such as health care and education. Mainly, I was a messenger to all of the Members of Provincial Parliament (MPP's) delivering water and notes to and from them in the chamber. When I was not in the chamber I attended math class, legislative class, played ping pong, and enjoyed free time. On Friday's we got to go on field trips to places such as Ripley's Aquarium, The Eaton's Centre and the harbourfront of Toronto. Typically I woke up around 6:30 a.m. and either walked to Queen's Park or took a bus. Walking took about 30 minutes and the bus took about 10 minutes to get to the buildings. The working day started at 8:00 a.m. and usually ended at around 6:00 p.m.

In the buildings, there was a cafeteria, vending machines, and many offices. It was very nice walking around in it. The day usually consisted of being in the chamber for about six hours along with having a lunch break and being in the Page quarters. The Page quarters consisted of changing rooms, bathrooms, a classroom, and a lunch room/ping pong room. It was very nice.

As I mentioned I was basically a messenger to the MPPs delivering them water from a water station and notes from their political aids and their offices. Pages sit or stand and wait to be called by the MPPs or their aids. The MPPs sometimes snapped their fingers to get your attention. If you had to deliver messages to the MPPs you had to know who they were as there were no name tags anywhere. There was man named "Mr B. who helped you if you had trouble knowing where someone was sitting. Before getting to Queen's Park all Pages had to memorize the MPPs names, faces, where they sat in the chamber and sometimes their portfolio, if they were part of the Government. There were 107 of them in total. This was very challenging at first but it got easier and easier.

Outside the routine of the chamber we got to meet people like Andrea Horwath (leader of the NDP), Hon. Kathleen Wynne (premier of Ontario), the speaker of the house, Dave Levac, the Sergeant at Arms, Dennis Clark, the Head Clerk of the house, Deb Deller, and also the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Elizabeth Dowdeswell (the Queen's representative in the Ontario parliament). All of us got the chance to meet and have lunch with our local MPP. My MPP Hon. Ted McMeekin had lunch with me and we chatted and talked for about an hour. I got my picture taken with him. The Page teacher, Ms. Tedford, was very nice to everybody and we had interesting class discussions. She was also quite good at math and could solve almost any problem!

Each Page gets to be a captain for the day. On this occasion your days starts earlier as you walk through the main doors into the Chamber with the speaker to formally open the Chamber for the day. As the team leader you also have to write and present a report on how everybody performed that day. There were twenty pages in total. I could not have asked for a better group. I really enjoyed getting to know the other Pages who came from many different backgrounds and faiths. I really enjoyed being a Page and I would definitely recommend it to any of the students at my school. It was a lot of fun and I wish I could go back and do it all again.