By Indresh das
(more information and blog posts available at http://www.radhashyamasundar.com/2/post/2010/11/canadas-newest-mp-how-canadas-minister-of-finance-recieved-the-bhagavad-gita.html)
Yesterday, Julian Fantino won the by-election in Vaughan (near Toronto) and became Canada’s newest Member of Parliament. Of course, this is not really all that important to devotees so there is a story behind the headline. In October, we were asked to come to his launch and we initially turned it down since we had the kid’s skating lessons and promised to go out with friend’s afterwards. Anyhow, after a number of calls that evening and the fact that the Minister of Finance was coming, other MPs and some other contacts we knew personally, we changed our mind and we decided to go. We had my dad take the kids from the arena and we tried to dewrinkle our office wear of the day.
During the launch there were the normal speeches, elbow rubbing and chit chat. In the chit chat, we found out that some of us had the opportunity to chat with Jim Flaherty, the Minster of Finance. Earlier, I had seen Brinda’s “copy”, so on a bit of a whim I grabbed that Bhagavad Gita. It was the only one we had on us and that only by chance. Upon inspection it was actually marked up by my daughter Brinda where she wrote her name on one page and across the thick portion/pages opposite to the spine of the book. So I grabbed an eraser from the kids back packs and did some erasing. I handed it to Kishori and told her to stuff it in her purse and got a bit of a weird look from her :)
So as promised, there actually was an opportunity for a few of us to meet with the Minster of Finance and after the intros, I had Kishori whip out the Bhagavad Gita and I presented it as a gift to Jim Flaherty. He was appreciative and said he has heard of the Bhagavad Gita but has never had one. He flipped through it and upon seeing the sanskrit joked that he can’t read that and I assured him there were English translations. I told him it was a good read for his trip back to Ottawa and for his travels and then conversation moved on from there… So that is how Canada’s Minister of Finance received the Bhagavad Gita “As It Is”.
Later on we met and congratulated Julian Fantino for his election bid launch, I told him I had a book I wanted to give to him but gave it to Jim Flaherty instead. I promised to drop by with one. Anyhow, it has been a crazy month and did not get a chance to get to his offices. So a congratulatory visit is due anyhow and when I see him, I shall take a very special book and what better month than December (Gita-Jayanti & Prabhupada Marathon) to give it.
On a final note, some local Torontonians may know that Julian Fantino is known as the “Top Cop” since he was the Chief of Police for Toronto and the for the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) most recently before he retired. I mention this since thanks to the opportunity granted by the Toronto Sankirtan team, last year around this time of the year, was the first time I went on book distribution since going when I was kid in Chicago. We got stopped by cops for making a traffic infraction and ended up distributing the first books, including a Bhagavad Gita to the police officer. Perhaps, I will leave the rest of that story for another post, but it seems that there is some synergy with book distribution and cops :)