Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

‘It’s important that we have our say’

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, November 10, 2011 11:24am - 1 Comment

Laurin Liu goes back to school.

She shared an anecdote to show them “how people really aren’t used to seeing young people in politics.” On one of their first days of work in the House of Commons, an MP from another party tried to give one of her young NDP colleagues an envelope, thinking she was a messenger or a page.

Tags: Laurin Liu, McGil, mcgill four, Montreal, NDP, Quebec

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Anonymous

“After graduating from Royal West, Liu attended Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. A career in politics wasn’t on her radar. She was a secondyear student at McGill University studying history and culture studies when, to her huge surprise, she won the Rivière-des-Mille-Îles riding for the NDP in May’s federal election.

“I didn’t think I would end up in politics, to be honest,” Liu told The Gazette after her talk. She had been thinking of a career as a writer or a historian.”

I am still not sure what to think about these ‘kids’. An early interest in politics and active with one group or another makes sense. To gather a 100(?) signatures from people in a place you have never been to seems more like winning the lottery – $157,000/year salary + expenses + on-the-job training.