Newly elected Miramichi MP is 'just Tilly'
Published Friday November 21st, 2008
OTTAWA - Like many twists of fate, the one that landed Tilly O'Neill-Gordon in the House of Commons had a long lead-up followed by hard work.
The lead-up: She was born into a family so staunchly partisan that she and her four sisters were shushed whenever a Conservative politician spoke on the radio.
The hard work: five weeks of tireless campaigning this fall.
The twist of fate?
Becoming the candidate.
In August, just a couple of weeks before Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the election, the Conservative riding association in Miramichi discovered the man they'd lined up to run was ineligible.
He'd let his party membership expire.
O'Neill-Gordon had been teaching in a classroom for a week when she was asked to run. She took a leave of absence - for six weeks, she thought.
"To tell you the truth, when I got into it, it was just to be the loyal party person," admitted O'Neill-Gordon, who had never spoken in a public debate before.
"But I wasn't into it long before I felt I was winning."
And, with Liberal leader Stephane Dion and his carbon tax idea so unpopular, win she did, toppling 15-year incumbent Liberal MP Charlie Hubbard by 1,468 votes.
She became only the third Conservative MP elected in Miramichi since 1867.
It's a big leap to go from 38 years teaching grade school, starting in her native village of Escuminac, to earning a seat in the House of Commons.
But O'Neill-Gordon was never far from politics.
Her ex-husband Jimmy Gordon was a Hatfield-era MLA representing Miramichi Bay from 1982 to 1987, so she knew being in elected office is a 24/7 job.
She also became well-known across New Brunswick by holding executive positions in the party over many years.
She is under no illusions about the influence of a brand-new backbencher.
She does not expect to change Ottawa and she doubts it will change her.
"I don't want to change," she said.
"I want people just to know I am listening, that I know what they're saying to me, that I really care and that I'm doing the best I can."
Teaching grade school for so long, she says, has given her a clear window into the lives of hundreds of families - many of whom are suffering from the Miramichi's mill closures or from having a breadwinner go out West to work in the oilpatch for weeks at a time.
"We need more jobs," she said. "I hate to see those families torn apart."
She's already fielding many calls from people having trouble with their Employment Insurance claim, and admits the calls are difficult to take.
"I feel sorry for them, I do, but I can't break the rules," she said.
She has plenty to learn, and realizes she will get help along the way.
Rookie members of Parliament are given thorough orientation sessions and their more experienced caucus colleagues offer advice.
But she knows a lot will come down to her ability to grow - and quickly - from classroom teacher to parliamentary learner.
"They say if you're learning you're getting younger," she said, "so I should be 29 by Christmas."
O'Neill-Gordon will benefit from hiring a veteran executive assistant, Ginette Gagnon, an Edmundston native who began working on Parliament Hill with Mulroney-era cabinet minister Bernard Valcourt. Other New Brunswickers have gone out of their way to welcome her, including fellow Miramichier Kevin Vickers, the towering retired Mountie who is the sergeant at arms for the Commons.
A self-described "talker" and refreshingly down-to-earth, O'Neill-Gordon admits to being a little awed by "being so close to the people you're used to seeing on TV."
But she doesn't hesitate to get closer.
Monday, when MPs had time to kill between rounds of voting for a new Speaker, she spotted Harper sitting in his front-row seat in the Commons.
She left her fifth-row seat to go sit with the prime minister.
The two had met briefly once before at a campaign rally in Moncton.
So this was indeed a get-to-know-you encounter: Harper even asked her whether Tilly was her name at birth (it's not - her birth certificate reads "Matilda.")
O'Neill-Gordon is one of 69 women elected Oct. 14. Women now comprise 22 per cent of the House of Commons, up just slightly from 2006.
O'Neill-Gordon said she is proud of the accomplishments of women, but she's matter-of-fact about gender.
"I'm just Tilly; I don't focus on being a woman," she said.
In Ottawa only a week, she already misses the Miramichi, its people, her tidy bungalow in Chatham.
The walls of her office are still bare.
"I want a picture of the wharf at Escuminac," said O'Neill-Gordon. "That's the first thing I want to put up."
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