New MPP Laura Mae Lindo joins Catherine Fife on the NDP benches
Laura Mae Lindo is Kitchener’s first black MPP.
And “I think I might be the first person to ever have dreads at Queen’s Park,” she said, referring to the fact that she wears her hair in dreadlocks.
On Friday, after the excitement of being elected in Kitchener Centre riding, the single mother of three went to Queen’s Park for a meeting with her new colleagues, the 39 other New Democratic Party MPPs who soon will form the Official Opposition.
She stood outside the Ontario legislature building and was overwhelmed.
“It felt surreal,” she said.
As a woman of colour, “I had never felt the building would be a place I could work,” she said.
“I never would have thought one of the major parties would believe in me as much as they did.”
Lindo was born in Canada of parents who immigrated from Jamaica.
She has a Ph.D in education, and her research specializes in ways that teachers can introduce difficult subjects into the classroom, such as racism and sexism.
Last October she took a personal leave, for family reasons, from her job as director of diversity and equity at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she was responsible for employment equity on campus, as well as supporting students.
Lindo was away from campus when the office was thrust into the media spotlight.
Graduate student Lindsay Shepherd had shown first-year communications students a clip from a television debate showing both sides of the argument about compulsory use of gender-neutral language such as “ze” and “they” instead of “he” or “she.”
Shepherd was reprimanded and threatened to the point of tears, in a meeting by two professors and Adria Joel, a temporary employee of the diversity and equity office.
Shepherd was told she had created a “toxic” environment in the classroom. She was also told (though this was later revealed as untrue) that students in the class had complained.
A recording that Shepherd made of the meeting sparked national outrage and intense debates about free speech on campus.
Shepherd received an apology from one of the professors in-
volved and from the university president, who said an investigation showed Shepherd had acted appropriately.
The university has since created a free-speech policy for itself. The diversity and equity office has not apologized to Shepherd.
Asked about that issue, Lindo said she never listened to the recording. She said Joel had been on temporary assignment, covering a maternity leave.
A statement from the university Friday congratulated Lindo on her win and said “the university will now assess how best to ensure continuity of leadership in support of Laurier’s commitment to diversity and equity.”
Lindo counts Alvin Curling, a former Liberal cabinet minister and the first black Speaker of the Legislature, as a close friend and mentor.
She met Waterloo New Democratic Party MPP Catherine Fife two years ago when she asked Fife to speak at a conference on racism on Canadian campuses. Later Fife persuaded her to run for the New Democrats.
Lindo, a widow, asked her children their opinion. She warned them it would be a tough job if she won. Her eldest, 13, said: “We shouldn’t let any of these experiences that have been difficult for us stop us from doing something important.”
Lindo said she knows some people are fearful that with the arrival of the Progressive Conservative government led by Doug Ford, some of the “big gains to build a really inclusive and diverse community across Ontario (are) kind of at stake.”
She hopes to be a counterbalance at Queen’s Park.
“What I want to do is to be able to find hope.”