Today Kathleen Wynne becomes Canada’s first woman premier.
As a woman, I am proud. As a person with a lesbian sibling, and many close gay and lesbian friends and colleagues, I am proud.
And as a mediator, I am very proud!
Kathleen is the first mediator ever to become premier. And what a mediator she is.
Her bio says she studied ADR at Harvard. And so she did. But she didn’t just take a Harvard course and call herself a mediator.
Kathleen first took training at St. Stephen’s House in Toronto, and volunteered there as a community mediator.
She also studied family mediation at the foot of one of our great family mediators, Dr. Barbara Landau. And she had a private mediation practice too.
In her life before politics she worked hard to develop peer mediation programs in schools.
We all have great expectations for our new premier, and that will be her greatest liability. But somehow I doubt, with all her mediation skills, that she will disappoint.
Congratulations Madame Premier!!
