This was an interesting weekend. A week ago, I received invitations to two events with the Canadian Liberal Party: a Shabbat dinner on Friday and a brunch on Sunday. Both of these had party leader Michael Ignatieff as the guest of honor.
The Sunday brunch was just a "bain de foule" where MPs would just meet the people that supported them. This was nothing new for me as I had been to many of those events with the ADQ at the provincial level. The one thing that struck me was how popular Justin Trudeau was. When he was first named, he received nearly as much applause as Ignatieff. He also seemed to be positioning himself as close to the leader as possible. He's been bred by the media as a possible future Prime Minister so he's acting like it.
Stéphane Dion also received a standing ovation at the event but he seemed a bit sad. He didn't seem to have the energy that the other MPs like Rodriguez or Coderre had. I heard someone say that his wife had predicted his win at the Liberal convention a few years ago to which Dion replied "Yes but we didn't win the one after that".
I also managed t speak to Pablo Rodriguez about free cell phones for the homeless. He told me to meet him at his office to discuss further. I personally want to know what steps would be necessary to bring this project forward within the Canadian government. Even though the Liberals are not in power, I hope he can help me do that.
Now, about Iggy! At the brunch, he gave an energetic and inspirational speech about how he was a strong leader and how the liberal party was awesome. He also gave us the creepy directive that went like "Allez frapper aux portes et dites aux gens que les Rouges sont de retour" (This is not a straight quote). All in all, I felt that this was a good speech to an audience that was already sold on his message.
So, I spoke about the brunch first. The reason is that the Shabbat was a very different experience, at least for me. So, on Friday, I went to the Opus Hotel not knowing at all how the evening was going to go. I had never been to a Shabbat dinner before and actually knew (and still knows) very little about the Jewish faith. I also knew no one at that dinner. This made the evening memorable. The Jewish community seems to be very tightly knit. Everyone knew each other and seemed to have helped one another in some way. They were also open insofar as I had no trouble striking conversations with anyone. I was also very impressed with the organizer Zach Battat. He gave a very interesting and emotional speech about the importance of Shabbat for him and his family. You could see the passion in his eyes and I felt he was, by far, the best speaker that night. And yes, that includes Ignatieff who seemed, at least to me, tired. The liberal leader's speech was thoughtful and intelligent but he didn't seem to have energy (something he displayed a lot on Sunday). He talked about his stance on the Israel-Palestine situation which is, in my opinion, fair.
That evening, I also learned that the Israelis in particular and the Jews in general were being persecuted in Venezuela through governmental actions. In answer to this, Canada decided to open its embassy doors to any Israeli who might need shelter and flew the Israeli flag. At any rate, when someone asked Ignatieff what he thought of this, he answered in a way that resonates with my values: state-sponsored hatred of an ethnic group, in this case jews, is unacceptable and Canada should work as hard as it can to prevent or stop such actions.
Oh and yea, I did get to shake Michael's hand and say that I am a fan, to which he said: "I am glad!"
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