One person who has been extremely supportive of my "Celebrate
Toronto" project is Provincial Member of Parliament, Michael Prue. He
and his staff have connected me with various individuals in the Beach
who are good candidates for my first Toronto neighbourhood portrait. Way
back in November I was invited to come out to lunch with him and his
team and Michael and I even recorded a joint Rogers television show
together. He came across as a very open and friendly individual with a
bright smile and a boyish charm, and I thought Michael himself might be a
good candidate for an interview so people in his riding, "Beaches -
East York", could get to know him from a more personal point of view. So
we arranged to meet at the Boardwalk Café on Toronto's waterfront, in
the Woodbine Beach area. For a few hours I had a chance to pick his
brain and ask away while Michael freely opened up to me.
Michael
is one of those rare Torontonians whose family tree is anchored for
several generations in the Toronto area. Toronto is one of the few
cities where the majority of people were born somewhere else (myself
included) and immigrated here. Not so with Michael. Both his parents
were born in Toronto, six out of eight of his great grandparents were
from Toronto. He traces his roots back to Irish / English / Scottish
immigrants generations ago and some of his relatives have a bible with
Laura Secord's name in it. (Laura Secord warned the British Army of the
advancing Americans during the War of 1812.). Another side of his family
is related to the Thompson family in Scarbourough - David and Mary
Thompson were some of the pioneers who opened up land to the east of
today's metropolis. A grandfather on his mother's side was actually from
Montreal of Irish and Frdnch background. His paternal great
grandfather's name was Proulx and that name was later anglicized to
Prue.
Michael was born at Women's College Hospital and grew up in a
tenement building on Oak Street. That's where Michael spent the first
four years of his life before the tenements were torn down and Regent
Park, Toronto's most (in)famous public housing project was built.
Families who were living in the area before the housing project was
built had first dibs on some of the apartments that were going up in the
new housing complex.
Michael Prue's father was born in 1921 and
had a very difficult time finding work during the Depression. He quit
school in 1936 to work in various odd jobs. In 1939, when World War II
started, he was one of the first to volunteer for the Canadian Army and
was sent to the battlefields of Europe. His father often talked about
his experiences in Europe and the places he had seen: North Africa,
Italy (he fought at Montecassino), Germany, Holland, Denmark, and
England/Scotland/Wales. Michael recalls his father talking often about
the places, but very rarely about the war itself. He still remembers one
of the highlights: a story of his father finding a secret stash of wine
in Italy.
After the war Michael's father worked on Queen Street
at a factory that produced rubber components. His job as a regular
factory worker was later followed up by a position as a janitor which he
held until retirement. Michael's mother stayed home with her children
until Michael was about 12 years old and then started to work as a
part-time bookkeeper.
Growing up in a working-class family in
Regent Park shaped Michael's outlook on life a great deal. His family
was doing better than average in this neighbourhood considering that
many families in Regent Park were single-parent low-income households.
Once he entered high school, things started to change. Michael attended
Jarvis Collegiate which at the time was attended largely by children
from Toronto's affluent Rosedale neighbourhood.
Michael was one of
the few people who attended an academic high school, most of the boys
he grew up with ended up at Central Tech while the girls attended
Central Commerce, preparing them for work in the trades or in
lower-level administrative jobs. Only 8 or 10 of Michael's colleagues
went to Jarvis Collegiate, but Michael said the class differences during
his high school years were almost insurmountable. Despite the fact that
he was on student council, he never got invited to dances or special
events, and that experience of being excluded on the basis of his social
class made him feel "a little bitter towards rich people". He admits
that he still works on overcoming this feeling to this day.
This
is also what attracted him to the ideology of the NDP, a party whose
constitution states "we will invite the co-operation of all persons who
are dedicated to the extension of freedom, the abolition of poverty and
the elimination of exploitation". Of his schoolmates Michael was the
only one to go on to postsecondary education, and many people ask him
today why he is so determined to fight for underprivileged individuals
if he himself has done well. To that he responds that he has seen how so
many people have gotten shafted based on their economic (or ethnic or
racial) background, and that's why he continues to fight on their behalf
to this day.
His university career includes an Honours Bachelors
degree in Political Science and Anthropology from the University of
Toronto and a Masters degree in Canadian Studies and Political
Science/Anthropology from Carlton University in Ottawa. When I asked
Michael what "Canadian Studies" is he explained that it encompasses
Canadian literature, geography and history. Although he was accepted by
various other universities for his masters program he liked Carlton
because he wanted a broader education than just political science. At
this Ottawa university Michael also had the opportunity to improve his
French language skills.


