Premier finds love at pizza parlour
FREDERICTON • Canada’s youngest premier is getting married — to a woman he met on a blind date at Boston Pizza.
New Brunswick’s telegenic Brian Gallant posted the news Monday on Twitter: “Karine said yes to spending the rest of her life with me.”
His fiancée, Karine Lavoie, is in her late 20s. She reportedly works for Canadian Heritage.
Gallant, 34, said both he and their dog Blaze couldn’t be happier.
“She’s absolutely terrific and together, they complement one another very well ... The two of them together, frankly, it feels like a very happy partnership,” said Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc, a longtime friend of Gallant’s who is also a friend of Lavoie’s family.
Gallant sent him a message him over the weekend to tell him the good news, he said.
LeBlanc said he and his wife had met the couple for dinner a few years ago at Le Petit Paris restaurant in Shediac, N.B. He said it was clear that Gallant and Lavoie had a “deep connection.”
“He was clearly captivated by Karine from the very start and I left that first dinner with the two of them very much of the view that this was probably the person that Brian would marry,” said LeBlanc.
LeBlanc, the federal minister of fisheries, said he’s known Gallant for about 15 years and said Lavoie’s grandfather was a friend of LeBlanc’s father, former governor general and longtime MP Romeo LeBlanc.
He said Lavoie has worked with various community organizations since graduating from the University of Moncton.
“She’s encouraged him to do things outside of work and politics,” said LeBlanc.
"I would tease him that if he didn’t find a way to … have interests outside of work, he was going to get overtired. A lot of Brian’s friends thought we needed to find a way for him to not work 18 hours a day, and Karine has been successful is setting up a routine for him that doesn’t only revolve around work.
“As a result, I think he’s much more enthusiastic and much happier about the work he has to do because he has this presence at home that is so positive for him.”
LeBlanc said both Gallant and Lavoie grew up in Shediac Bridge, N.B., and he confirmed they met through a mutual friend who set them up on blind date. According to the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, that happened at a Boston Pizza outlet in Moncton.
Gallant, whose father is Acadian and his mother one of 17 children born to Dutch immigrants, was elected premier in October 2014.
He received a bachelor in business administration and a law degree from the University of Moncton before completing his masters of law from McGill University. Gallant worked in a private law practice before being elected Liberal leader in 2012.