A Sarnia-area elementary school pupil carried on a family tradition, and helped break a record, serving recently as a page at Queen’s Park.
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Ahmed Arif, 12, a seventh-grader at Plympton-Wyoming’s Errol Village elementary school, returned home is late March after two weeks as a page at the Ontario legislature in Toronto.
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His older brother, Mustafa Arif, was previously part of the page program that selects about 150 senior pupils each year as pages, delivering messages for MPPs, filling water glasses and learning how laws are made.
Arif said his brother’s experience, and the chance to make new friends, led him to apply in December, “and then I got the call that I was accepted in January.”
Arif and his mother stayed in Toronto during his time at the legislature.
“You had to work hard,” Arif said of his days as one of 22 pages. Some days, they were at the legislature from 8 am to 4 pm, but other days didn’t end until 6 pm
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Pages wear a uniform, including a blazer, tie and vest, and attend math and civics classes in addition to their duties in the chamber.
“I learned a lot in those few weeks,” Arif said.
Making friends with the other pages, who came from communities across southern Ontario, and working in the legislative chamber were his favorite parts of the experience, he said.
A new provincial budget was released during his time there and Arif and fellow pages delivered the document to every MPP in the chamber.
“We had our own goal to break the record of the delivery time,” of 28 seconds, he said. “We beat it by five seconds.”
Along with a group photo and certificate of participation, Arif came home with a certificate noting he was part of the record-breaking group.
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They practiced delivering stacks of budget books from near the Speaker’s chair to the desks of each of the 124 MPPs.
Each page carried four to seven budget books at a time. “Taller people got more,” Arif said. “I got six.”
Their delivery routes were laid out ahead of time and they had a few dry runs when MPPs weren’t in the legislature.
MPPs were friendly and helpful during his time at Queen’s Park, he said. Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey treated Arif, his mother and brothers, to lunch at the legislature and Education Minister Stephen Lecce stopped by their table to greet them.
Arif said he noticed how MPPs from opposing parties treated each other differently outside the chamber.
“During question period, they were mean to each other,” but when they’re together in the dining room, “everybody’s nice,” he said.
Pages must be in Grade 7 or 8 when they apply and have at least an 80 per cent average. They’re also expected to memorize MPPs’ names and electoral districts.
“This definitely made me more interested in politics,” Arif said.
As well as enjoying school, Arif said he likes spending time with his brothers and playing ping pong. He was also on a school volleyball team and earned a silver medal at this year’s Lambton County Science Fair.
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