Fresh face ready for work
[attach]5125[/attach]Sitting in a Bloor Street café one sunny afternoon in October, Jonah Schein turns off his cellphone ringer to avoid interruptions over coffee.
It’s a polite gesture, one the newly minted MPP probably won’t have the luxury of making much longer. Indeed, it’s only a few weeks after an election that saw Schein win the Davenport seat in a wide-open race, and his phone isn’t ringing off the hook — yet.
Schein’s election night win on Oct. 6 has thrust the community activist into this seven-days-a-week occupation and he’s keen to get down to work.
It’s been a long time coming for Schein.
Back in June of 2010, after years of community work, Schein decided to throw his hat into the race to be the Ward 17 Davenport councillor.
Though he mounted an earnest campaign and garnered a decent number of votes, it wasn’t enough to overcome the ward’s incumbent Cesar Palacio.
But in a year that saw elections at every level of government, Schein didn’t fall back into obscurity.
After the federal election in May in which the New Democratic Party gained a historic number of seats, including in Davenport, Schein took his chances and the profile he gained during the city election and ran for the provincial NDP, this time with positive results.
Now the real work begins.
In some ways Schein’s got big shoes to fill. His predecessor, Tony Ruprecht, was a very visible presence in the riding, attending events, ribbon-cuttings and advocating on behalf of individual constituents.
In that regard, Schein says he’s no slouch. He wants to engage his electorate, he says, by being visible on the ground. Community engagement, after all, is how he got into politics in the first place.
The soft-spoken 37-year-old holds a master’s in social work, and has a list of social justice organizations he’s worked with.
A turning point, Schein says, was helping found a civic engagement program at the Stop Community Food Centre located in the riding he now represents.
“What was great about working at The Stop was continuing to provide people with direct support and direct advocacy but also strengthening a community’s ability to advocate for themselves … and also being able to engage at the policy level.”
Schein says he doesn’t expect — or intend — his work as MPP to be all that much different.
A priority, he says, is building up a strong riding association by continuing the grassroots activism and momentum gained during the campaign.
“If (Dalton) McGuinty doesn’t want to listen to my voice at Queen’s Park about the diesel train, how arewe going to make sure that he listens to the people in this riding who are affected?”
The province’s plan to operate more diesel trains by way of a proposed Union Station–Pearson Airport rail link that would run through the riding is a huge concern for many in the community who feel adding more diesel trains to the rail corridor will bring more pollution and noise to the nearby residential neighbourhoods.
“We need to build transit in this city, but why are we building transit that is going to make our communities sick? That’s not going to serve this riding at all.”
Schein says he will also advocate for better public transit funding at the provincial level. He’s in a good position to do so: On Oct. 25, he was appointed the environment and urban transportation critic under the NDP’s shadow cabinet.
Schein says the NDP’s position in this minority government will help the party accomplish more at Queen’s Park.
“This is huge, (the Liberals) are going to need to get support from other folks in the house, so they can’t just do whatever they want.”
Schein is using space at Ruprecht’s constituency office until the end of November, but he’s looking to rent a place for his own constituency office, which he hopes to shape into a community space.
“We need to build a social movement that’s going to reverse the direction of how things are going in Ontario,” he says. “I think that happens by supporting this community.”
