Presenting - Michael Prue, A Working Class Success Story - From Regent Park to Queens Park

One individual who have been extremely supportive of my "Celebrate Toronto" undertaking is Provincial Member of Parliament, Michael Prue. He and his staff have got connected me with assorted people in the Beach who are good campaigners for my first Toronto vicinity portrait. Manner back in November Iodine was invited to come up out to lunch with him and his squad and Michael and I even recorded a joint Will Rogers telecasting show together. He came across as a very unfastened and friendly person with a bright smiling and a boylike charm, and I thought Michael himself might be a good campaigner for an interview so people in his riding, "Beaches - East York", could acquire to cognize him from a more than personal point of view. So we arranged to ran into at the Boardwalk Café on Toronto's waterfront, in the Virginia Creeper Beach area. For a few hours I had a opportunity to pick his encephalon and inquire away while Michael freely opened up to me.

Michael is one of those rare Torontonians whose household tree is anchored for respective coevals in the Toronto area. Toronto is one of the few metropolises where the bulk of people were born somewhere else (myself included) and immigrated here. Not so with Michael. Both his parents were born in Toronto, six out of eight of his great grandparents were from Toronto. He hints his roots back to Irish / English Language / Scots immigrants coevals ago and some of his relations have got a Bible with Laura Secord's name in it. (Laura Secord warned the British Army of the advancing Americans during the War of 1812.). Another side of his household is related to the Homer Homer Thompson household in Scarbourough - Saint David and Virgin Mary Thompson were some of the innovators who opened up land to the east of today's metropolis. A grandfather on his mother's side was actually from Montreal of Irish and Gallic background. His paternal great grandfather's name was Proulx and that name was later anglicized to Prue.

Michael was born at Women's College Hospital and grew up in a tenement house edifice on Oak Street. That's where Michael spent the first four old age of his life before the tenement houses were torn down and Regent Park, Toronto's most (in)famous populace lodging undertaking was built. Families who were living in the country before the lodging undertaking was built had first dibs on some of the flats that were going up in the new lodging complex.

Michael Prue's father was born in 1921 and had a very hard clip determination work during the Depression. He discontinue school in 1936 to work in assorted odd jobs. In 1939, when World War two started, he was one of the first to volunteer for the Canadian Army and was sent to the battlegrounds of Europe. His father often talked about his experiences in Europe and the topographic points he had seen: North Africa, Italian Republic (he fought at Montecassino), Germany, Holland, Denmark, and England/Scotland/Wales. Michael remembers his father talking often about the places, but very rarely about the warfare itself. He still retrieves one of the highlights: a narrative of his father determination a secret hoard of vino in Italy.

After the warfare Michael's father worked on Queen Street at a mill that produced India rubber components. His occupation as a regular mill worker was later followed up by a place as a janitor which he held until retirement. Michael's female parent stayed place with her children until Michael was about 12 old age old and then started to work as a part-time bookkeeper.

Growing up in a working-class family in Regent Park molded Michael's mentality on life a great deal. His household was doing better than norm in this vicinity considering that many households in Regent Park were single-parent low-income households. Once he entered high school, things started to change. Michael attended Jarvis Collegiate which at the clip was attended largely by children from Toronto's flush Rosedale neighbourhood.

Michael was one of the few people who attended an academic high school, most of the male children he grew up with ended up at Central Technical School while the misses attended Central Commerce, preparing them for work in the trades or in lower-level administrative jobs. Only 8 or 10 of Michael's co-workers went to Jarvis Collegiate, but Michael said the social class differences during his high school old age were almost insurmountable. Despite the fact that he was on pupil council, he never got invited to dances or particular events, and that experience of being excluded on the footing of his societal social class made him experience "a small acrimonious towards rich people". He acknowledges that he still works on overcoming this feeling to this day.

This is also what attracted him to the political orientation of the NDP, a political party whose fundamental law states "we will ask for the co-operation of all people who are dedicated to the extension of freedom, the abolishment of poorness and the riddance of exploitation". Of his classmates Michael was the lone 1 to travel on to postsecondary education, and many people inquire him today why he is so determined to struggle for underprivileged people if he himself have done well. To that he reacts that he have got seen how so many people have gotten shafted based on their economical (or ethnical or racial) background, and that's wherefore he goes on to struggle on their behalf to this day.

His university calling includes an Honours Bachelors grade in Political Science and Anthropology from the University of Toronto and a Edgar Lee Masters grade in Canadian Studies and Political Science/Anthropology from Carlton University in Ottawa. When I asked Michael what "Canadian Studies" is he explained that it encompasses Canadian literature, geographics and history. Although he was accepted by assorted other universities for his Masters programme he liked Carlton because he wanted a broader instruction than just political science. At this Ottawa university Michael also had the chance to better his Gallic linguistic communication skills.

After completing university he got two occupation offerings on the same day: he was offered a one-year contract place as main lobbyist with the Mugwump Publishers Association where he would have got been supervising a staff of 5 people. Not bad for a 25-year old consecutive out of university.

His 2nd occupation chance was as an in-migration officer, and after consulting with his hereafter married woman he ended up accepting the occupation with Immigration Canada, particularly since it was a long-term opportunity with the Federal Soldier Government. Over his 20 twelvemonth calling with the Immigration Department Michael accumulated numerous interesting narratives and anecdotes. He initially worked as an in-migration military officer at the airdrome and in 1973 – 1974 there was a batch of illegal in-migration from assorted 3rd human race countries. People would get pretending to come up here as tourers and then vanish and work illegally, jumping ahead of the waiting line of immigrants who had followed the proper procedures.

Often the occupation of an in-migration military officer is quite sad, because by definition it affects splitting households apart. Immigration military officers have got to measure lawsuits in the household reunion category, and Michael remembers one narrative where a adult female tried to convey in her aged father who had cancer. Michael declined the application owed to the certain costs for the Canadian wellness attention system, knowing that this adult female would never see her father again. He compares it to being a doctor, having to do tough determinations that affect people's lives, but needing to stay emotionally detached.

His university surveys in anthropology came in convenient respective modern times when he was dealing with refugee claimants from assorted 3rd human race countries. Michael asked some probing inquiries as to the affinity system in the refugee claimant's family. Which side of the family, the mother's side or the father's side, would be responsible for looking after off-spring if the parents died? His extended cognition of matrilineal, patrilineal and other affinity systems of different societies around the human race made one lawyer retreat a refugee claim on behalf of his client. Michael simply knew too much about local household constructions and lines for his client to acquire away with fake claims.

Michael also explained that exiles go on to Canadian immigrants from other states when they perpetrate serious law-breakings in their new place country. He indicated that anecdotally, along with his co-workers they thought that about one-half of them were from Jamaica. They were not allowed to maintain stastistics. According to Michael, there is actually a sociological ground behind some of the law-breaking jobs in the Jamaican-Canadian community: during the 1960s Canada imported a big figure of female immigrants from Jamaica to work as domestic retainers and nannies. These women had to be single, have got got got a class 9 education, talk English and have "no issue", i.e. they were not allowed to have children to measure up for this program.

Many 100s of Jamaican adult female arrived in the 1960s, seeking a better life in Canada. In the 1970s, after they had go Canadian citizens, they started to direct for their children, since so many of these women indeed had one or even more than children who had actually been raised by aunts, first cousins or other household members. As a consequence of the lacking parental attachment, many of these children had grown up without much subject and small education. In Caribbean Sea households it is often the female parent that throws the household together, and once she is gone the household falls apart.

So when these immature Jamaican people arrived in Canada to be reunited with their female parents they saw all this wealthiness around them, they realized their deficiency of chances as new immigrants with few contiguous occupation prospects, and they became resentful. In the end it was Canada's in-migration policy that caused this job which goes on to project its shadows today.

I asked Michael why he made a move into politics. He explained that political relation had always been in his blood and remembers an incident that happened when he was about six old age of age. He had gone on an outing with his parents to Riverdale Park, which at that clip was the location of the Toronto Zoo. All of a sudden Michael had disappeared and his parents were frantically searching for him in the crowd of people. His father finally establish him, admiring a adult male on a soap box who was sharing his doctrines in presence of many onlookers.

Not only makes Michael bask public speaking, but he also desires to do a sincere difference, particularly for the less fortunate people in society. During his last few old age with the Immigration Department he ran six modern times for political relation and won twice and became a Council Member in the former Borough of East York, which since our municipal merger on January 1, 1998 is portion of the City of Toronto.

All East House Of House Of York Councillors were part-timers who would go to commission meetings on assorted eves and afternoons, and Michael would simply take unpaid clip off work to mind his civic duties as a Councillor. From 1993 to late 1997 Michael was the Mayor of the Borough of East York, a clip of a major economical slowdown. Michael is indeed the first individual that I heard mention to this epoch as a "depression". And by any economical definitions this clip was indeed a depression since it was a clip period of more than than six living quarters of negative growing in a row.

This was a time when no new major commercial or industrial undertakings were undertaken at all in Toronto. As a substance of fact, Michael bespeaks that the new Dorothea Knitting Robert Mills mill in East House Of York was the lone new commercial / industrial undertaking in all of Toronto, and his borough was able to pull this new investing owed to their favourable licensing programme that would give new enterprisers all necessary licenses within a 90-day period, unheard of in any other portion of the city.

Michael loved being Mayor since he could really consequence alteration and do a difference in people's lives. Being a provincial Member of Parliament in resistance is a different story. Since Michael is a member of the New Democratic Party's caucus he is not portion of the opinion Liberal government. As a consequence his function is limited to being a critic, something that he happens frustrating. He has, however, been able to do some changes.

One illustration was the lawsuit of a adult female on social welfare who establish a $25,000 package of money on the streets. She correctly assumed that these finances were the place of the local bank, and it was indeed confirmed that this big package of money had been dropped by armoured auto employees. The depository financial institution gave her somes $3000 wages for her honesty, however, because she was on social social welfare the provincial government clawed back the $3000 from her welfare payments, in consequence punishing her for her honesty. This honorable citizen would have got seen none of her wages if Michael Prue had not intervened. He brought this lawsuit to the attending of the Curate of Community and Sociable Services and after persuasively arguing his case, the adult female was allowed to maintain her wages without having the same amount clawed back from her social welfare payments.

Michael also went to chiropteran for a adult male who is suffering from late-stage diabetes. His disease is so serious that he is losing his vision and will have got one of his legs amputated in the adjacent few days. This adult male is receiving a regular disablement support payment because he is not able to work. The provincial authorities have cut his nutrition subsidy in half, a supplementary payment that allowed him to pay for a particular diet which involved expensive points such as as macrobiotic yogurts and protein agitates since he have a difficult clip digesting proteins owed to his condition.

Michael explained that the authorities was saving $10 a calendar month in nutrition addendums while incurring other infirmary costs of $600 a twenty-four hours for the leg amputation which happened it is believed primarily owed to the less class diet the adult male was forced to eat because of the cut in his nutrition supplement. Sometimes governments' determinations do not make sense from an economical point of position and they can do serious adversities to the people in question. Wherever he can, Michael seeks to point out these contradictions and seeks to assist the people affected.

I questioned Michael about his Beaches-East York horseback riding – the electoral territory that he represents. He explained that some countries of his horseback riding have got a just figure of low income residents, new immigrants and other people with societal issues. A relatively recent moving ridge of Bangladeshi immigrants along Danforth Avenue have got caused a readjustment in the vicinity as they have started to open up supplies and throw cultural events along this popular Toronto thoroughfare. Michael have got experienced the Bangladeshi immigrants as a very adaptable and resourceful grouping of people who have adjusted quite successfully to their new environment. Michael have establish them to be difficult workings and very interested in the local community. Individuals from this community have got gotten involved in political political campaigns of different campaigners from all political parties and they take part in the democratic process.

We also talked about the Thorncliffe Park area, for which Michael was responsible when he was Mayor of East York. This country have Canada's biggest concentration of Moslem immigrants and many of these occupants are Ismaili Muslims, a Shiah religious sect that observes the Agha Caravansary as its Negro spiritual leader. Michael qualifies this grouping of Muslims as existent immigrant success narratives since they often get from other states without much money and a deficiency of English Language skills. He acknowledges that when he saw some of them get in wintertime in short sleeved shirts and visible light cotton wool pants, just having landed from assorted topographic points in East Africa, he thought that they would never do it.

Within a few old age the Ismaili Moslem immigrants had achieved significant economical success and virtually all their children were attending university or college. Michael explained that their alone traditions are cardinal to their success: these immigrants pool their money and dedicate themselves to helping one another accomplish a better life. But their generousness and community aid is not limited to members of their ain group: they go involved in charitable activities that aid people of other communities and backgrounds. Their declared end is to go good citizens of the state they belong to and they see it as a duty to do their topographic point state a better place for everyone. Michael acknowledges that he truly underestimated the ability of this grouping of immigrants and expressed his congratulations and esteem to them during a recent populace event.

Another portion of his horseback riding is the Beach, also referred to as the Beaches. I tried to unclutter up the confusion as to why some people might name this country "the Beach" while others might mention to it as the "Beaches". Michael explained that historically the country consisted of respective beaches, including Virginia Creeper Beach, Kew Beach, Balmy Beach and Scarborough Beach, but the commercial strip along Queen Street East from Virginia Creeper to Queen Victoria Park have always been referred to as "the Beach". The wider country outside the Queen Street strip is still mostly referred to by many as "the Beaches".

When Michael's female parent was growing up in Toronto's East End near Queen Victoria Park and Danforth, the country was still very achromatic Anglo-Saxon Protestant (white / Anglo-Saxon / Protestant), and especially leading up to and during the 2nd World War there was a batch of racism, not just in the Beach, but in other parts of Toronto and Canada as well. This epoch was not a proud minute in Canadian history. Michael mentions to an first-class book called "Sabbath Goy" written by a Torontonian about his young person growing up in the Agatha Christie Pitts country and being hired by Judaic households to finish light work on the Sabbath.

The Beach vicinity generally shows very few concerns to their provincial member of parliament. One thing occupants are passionate about is education, and when the provincial authorities cut support to schools, Michael received numerous letters from components in the Beach, indicating their concerns about this policy. At the clip when the provincial authorities passed a law outlawing cavity bull ownership owed to many violent domestic dog attacks, assorted occupants of the Beach also spoke out, both on the professional and con side. Overall, he states the occupants from the Beach are very easy to cover with. He states he's been having "a hoot" working in political relation and really basks interacting with the public.

Very recently there have been some contention in the Beach: St. Aidan's Anglican Church have proposed to take part in a city-wide drop-in program for the homeless person called "Come in from the Cold". Once a hebdomad homeless person person people would drop in and have got a topographic point to remain at St. Aidan's for the nighttime while other locations throughout the metropolis would house the homeless on other years of the week. Michael have received letters and facsimiles from people who were opposed to the project. The undertaking would have got a sum of 12 homeless person people disbursement 1 nighttime a hebdomad at St. Aidan's Church. The referring federal agencies in business district Toronto would have got to name ahead and do a reserve before the homeless person person people actually have a tram nominal to acquire to St. Aidan's.

Some of the local occupants expressed concerns that the homeless people might convey in diseases, or a criminal component into the neighbourhood. They did not desire their children exposed to communicable diseases like tuberculosis. Assorted rather awful articles were written in different Toronto mass media about the deficiency of community spirit in the Beach. Finally a meeting was held on January 16 which was attended by 100s of people. Details of the programme were explained to the occupants and most of the fearfulnesses were allayed. In Michael's view, 95% of the concerns were unfounded. Many of the occupants stood up at the meeting and said that they hold with this undertaking and experience ashamed about this awful reaction. More than 100 people volunteered to assist out with the homeless person program. Money was being collected and one adult female donated $1000, saying that she is a god-fearing atheist, but she back ups the programme and desires to set her money where her oral cavity is.

Michael adds that the police force don't see a job with the program. Homeless people generally make not present a big law-breaking issue, although they may acquire verbally insulting if they are asked to move. Michael express joys and states that many police force military officers have got been told to acquire lost (Michael actually used more than colourful terminology) by a diverse grouping of residents, not just the homeless. He commented "it's amazing what 10 or 12 people can make with a facsimile machine" and states it's ironic because the Beach is really a rather left-wing area that consistently ballots for the NDP. So the large contention over the "Come in from the Cold" programme was rather surprising, and fortunately the residents' fearfulnesses have got been addressed at the recent meeting.