FORT FRANCES — Ontarians who watch proceedings of their provincial legislature on TV may notice young people moving about, delivering notes to legislators. For three weeks this fall, Paxton Hughes was one of those youngsters.
The 13-year-old Fort Frances resident served as a Legislative Page at Queen’s Park from Oct. 16 to Nov. 2.
The job involved delivering water and notes to members, as well as delivering bills, motions and petitions to Provincial Parliament officials during proceedings.
The Grade 7 Fort Frances High School student heard about the program from a teacher who knew Paxten to be interested in politics.
“I applied for it, not thinking I was going to get in,” Paxten said Friday while on the way home. “Two months later, I got accepted.”
Approximately 150 young Ontarians are selected for the Legislative Page program each year, and they are overwhelmingly from the east side of the province. Of the 22 young helpers in his cohort, Paxten was the only one from Northwestern Ontario.
Paxten’s mother noted that he was away from his regular school in those three weeks at the legislative building, but not away from schooling.
There’s a rather well-staffed school for pages not far from the legislative chamber, Jackie Lampi-Hughes said.
The school has high standards, requiring an 80 per cent or above to pass an assignment – “and we got a quiz on who all the MPPs are,” Paxten said.
“And we had one principal, one vice principal, an administrator and four ushers for 22 of us,” he added.
When not at Queen’s Park, the Fort Frances boy got a taste of big-city living. Activities included a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum and dining in the CN Tower’s revolving restaurant.
After meeting with Premier Doug Ford on Thursday, Paxten and his mom flew to Thunder Bay on Friday and she drove him back to their Fort Frances abode, where his dad and two dogs were waiting for him.
Pages receive an honorarium and are under the direction of the program coordinator, who is a certified teacher.
The legislature has had pages for more than 150 years. The first ones were 10-to-14-year-old boys who ran errands and carried messages for MPPs.
Legislative Page was an all-male position until 1971. An all-girl cohort was selected nine years later.
