By William MacDonald
Editor’s note: William MacDonald sent us this column earlier this week and we were so impressed with his writing, we knew we had to publish it. Keep up the good work, William.
Hi, I’m William MacDonald and I’m from Sudbury, Ontario. In April 2018, I served as a legislative page at Queen’s Park. To be a page, you must be a Grade 7 or 8 student with an 80 per cent average in school.
The two to five you spend as a page is usually busy. You almost always have a task to complete, such as delivering water, bills, petitions, notes, and many more things. You get to see all the action inside the Chamber. You learn all sorts of things about politics, and you make a lot of new friends. Plus, you get to where this fancy uniform.
I applied to the Page Program in November 2017. The first thing I had to do was write a resume about myself and why I wanted to be a page. About four months later, I received a letter saying I’ve been accepted into the Page Program!
I was sent a package of study materials to prepare me for Queen’s Park. They gave me flash cards to help me memorize 107 MPP names, the Speaker's name, the clerks' names, the Lieutenant Governor's name, and the name of the Sergeant-At-Arms.
They gave me some workbooks to help me understand the rules inside the chamber. Like if an MPP asks for water, always give them two glasses unless they say otherwise.
The first time I got to see Queen’s Park was on Orientation Day. My mom and my grandmother took me there. The building is 125 years old and made from sandstone.
When I walked into the building, I was greeted by a lady named Paula, who showed me the way to where all the other pages were. Everyone looked nervous. Paula and our teacher, Ms. Colley, taught us everything we need to know inside and outside the chamber to make sure we were in the best shape to be a page.
The next time I was at Queen’s Park was two weeks after Orientation Day. That day was my first day as a page. There was a lot going on. I was asked for water at the same time I was asked to deliver documents. It was busy, but I learned a lot and I made a lot of friends who had interesting stories. When I got home after work, everything was like a blur. It was a big jump from 6 hours at school to 10 hours as a Page. This was something I had to get used to.
As a Page, there were normal days and awesome days. A normal day is: Wake up at 6:00 am. Get dressed. Take the subway to Queen’s Park. Then get changed into your uniform and go to briefing. Briefing is a time in the morning where our teacher explained what we were going to do during the day.
Then we would walk in procession to Question Period. Question Period is when the MPP’s “discuss” (argue) about problems in Ontario and solutions to the problems. Then we would have class and learn about politics. Then we would have lunch and play ping pong or Fortnite mobile on our phones/tablets. After lunch, we would head down to Routine Proceedings.
During Routine Proceedings, the MPP’s would discuss bills, motions, and petitions. Routine Proceedings lasted for 3 hours. Everyone's backs would start hurting and then you would look at the MPP’s sitting in their super comfy chairs, and that would just make the seconds go by longer. Last, we would have math. Then we would head home. By the time I got home, it was around 7:15 pm.
An awesome day is either a Friday, a day where you meet people or the day where you are Page Captain. On Fridays, the Pages would go on field trips. The first week we went to an art museum. The second week we visited the Science Centre, the third was the aquarium, and the last Friday we went to Second City.
The other awesome thing was the day we got to meet people. We got to meet the Premier, who was Kathleen Wynne at the time, the Speaker, the Head Clerk, the Sergeant-At-Arms, the Lieutenant Governor, and all the Pages got to meet their MPP. I am from Sudbury, the MPP from Sudbury at the time was Glenn Thibeault. So I got to have lunch with him. Another example of an awesome day is the day where you are Page Captain.
As Page Captain, you are in charge of the all the other Pages. Also, the following day you have to give an oral presentation on how good of a job the group did the day before.
My last day as a Page was also my shortest and saddest. We had a normal routine, except that the Pages’ last day was also Parliament’s last day. So to celebrate, the Speaker gave a speech, and the Media threw paper everywhere. It’s called the “Paper Slide”. It was really cool except the Pages had to clean up all the paper once the media was done throwing it. We went back to PQ (Page Quarters) got our memory packages and said bye to everyone. I still miss all my friends.
In conclusion, I think the Page Program is a wonderful experience that I will remember all my life. I learned so much, made lots of new friends, and had a lot of fun. I recommended it to all grade 7 and 8 students in Ontario.
