The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Flin Flon is about to officially bid farewell to the longest-serving MLA in its history. After the ballots are counted this Tuesday, Oct. 4, Gerard Jennissen will no longer be this riding's voice in the legislature. After a run of more than 16 years, Jennissen chose not to seek re-election, taking some well-deserved time to be with his family and take on other challenges. The following is a condensed version of an article by Julian Kolt. It appeared in Vol 9 Iss 4 of Cottage North Magazine. There are men and women in every community who come to define its spirit. Through their own skills and beliefs, they share in the practices of the people around them, but they also lead them into better times when they can, and defend them from menacing ones when they can't. These people are not always politicians or heads of business, but are always leaders, working towards the benefit of their community. When chance has it that such a person becomes your community's representation within government, it can only be for the better. Such people work long and hard to keep their home strong, vibrant and interesting. Gerard Jennissen is one such person. In his 16 years as MLA for the Flin Flon constituency, over the course of four terms of office, Gerard has done his utmost to uphold the spirit of the north, and keep its interests at heart. I have had the pleasure of interviewing him and present to you, now, the product. Political Views Gerard believes he was always a political person. He once discovered an old yearbook of his from Macklin High School. He was in grade ten, and there were blurbs beneath each picture. His read "politician to be". He had no idea why it would say that unless he had already been talking about political things. The seed had likely been implanted in his heart at a young age. His experiences in Europe reflected a world that he wanted to avoid, both in the way the war had progressed and the way that the people had to come through it. He wanted to have a better world, and one way of doing so was to get politically involved. The biggest personal change for him was when he heard Tommy Douglas speak. Tommy was the soul of the CCF (Sask-atchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation), which later went on to help form the NDP. He was the seventh Premier of Saskatchewan, the father of Medicare, provincial auto insurance and a host of other things. Listening to Tommy speak was unbelievable. See 'Gerar...' on pg 10 Continued from pg. 1 Like many students who heard him, Gerard became involved with his movement, because he thought that it was right. Tommy was a Baptist minister. He believed that the Bible was not just a dry document, but one that had to be taken seriously, and had to be applied seriously. From that flowed a whole series of social responsibilities, consequences and actions, known roughly as the social gospel. Many people became converts to this social gospel. Their aim in life wasn't just to be rich and famous and to leave the rest of the world behind, their aim was to work their way to the top of fellow citizens, and to do what was good for all, since it too would be good for them. They were to work towards the common good, the common wealth. This was often seen as anti-capitalist and anti-system. Tommy Douglas was in the middle of Saskatchewan, a tiny pink square on an enormous blue North America. Some saw this as a threat, but to Gerard, it was never intended that way. He considered it to be one of the most honest, straight forward, and committed democratic organizations to have ever existed. To this day, there is a lingering suspicion about socialism and the left wing, but to him this is pure nonsense, and there has never been a more serious government than that under Tommy Douglas. To thousands, he was a great premier and a great leader, and he was one of the bigger influences in Jennissen's life. Some of Gerard's favourite quotes from Tommy Douglas include: "Courage, my friend, it's never too late to build a better world." And, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." He also enjoyed a story of Tommy's, called "Mouseland", in which a group of mice had to vote between two groups to be their leader, the black cats and the white cats. When they got fed up with both and voted for a mouse instead, the mouse was imprisoned. Its final message was that you can lock up a person, but you can't lock up an idea, and as long as you're voting for people who don't have your best interests at heart, you're never going to get anywhere. Political Life Gerard has found it very difficult to quantify life as a politician. "Like education, the further away you are from it, the rosier the picture becomes. Education was very difficult work. Kids are complex human beings with complex needs, and teaching them is never easy, but it is rewarding. Politics is much the same way. There are many positives and many negatives. Among the worst are the stereotypes. Many people belonging to the 'white' and 'black' cats would like you to believe that politics is irrelevant. Politicians are to be linked with used car salesmen, as if there was something shady or underhanded about it. As if they are not being factual, honest or straightforward. "In many cases, nothing could be further from the truth. It's probably one of the most serious occupations that you can have. You're creating the laws of this country, and the people who you're putting in charge of making those laws have to be serious and concerned people. The issue before all of us is to make sure the people you select really do represent you. In history, there have been huge chunks of time where your representatives, although they talk as if they represented the people, always represented elites. Be it the power elite, the money elite, or whatever the elite was. They were the upper crust, who worked for that upper crust, but somehow the people kept voting them in, even though they weren't good for them. "We wanted to change that. If people want serious change, then they've got to start voting for people who represent them: ordinary working class human beings. "But if you believe that everyone deserves to be a millionaire and deserves to be up in that category, then you should vote Tory. I personally don't believe that. I think that people should try to make sure that they're aware of their own best interest." See 'Vote...' on pg. 17 Continued from pg. 10 "Vote for the people who have the same values and directions as yourself. It's hard to do, because existing black cats and white cats have always monopolized the media. There was once a time when I would shake my head because you couldn't get an NDP message across in this country in the media, in the Big Media particularly, if you tried. This particular media outlet spouted the Tory line and that one would spout the Liberal line, it was always one or the other. Never the NDP. We couldn't get our message out. To this day we still can't get our message out. We start with a huge handicap, without press on our side. The odd time they'll say favourable things, but there are no huge chains that will suddenly espouse the NDP. "This may change with the sudden boost to the NDP in Ottawa. Maybe some of the newspapers will wake upÉthe small ones, not the big chains, guaranteed. Say that maybe we do speak for the people. That could open up a lot of doors. Up to this point, it hasn't happened. We're still the underdog, despite forming the government for the last 12 years in Manitoba. "It would be nice for some of the media to pay attention. They've often been dismissive. But we know our values are solid. We know where we have to go. We know we stand for the people. So how can we be wrong?" On Retirement Gerard had the following to say when I asked him about how he felt about going into his retirement. "What I should say first of all, it almost sounds phony, but I have this tremendous sense of humility and gratitude. That people have chosen you to do a job. Put their trust in you. "We're all fellow broken human beings. All of us. None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. I certainly do. So they put their trust into one broken, fallible human being, as we all are, and that human being has to carry all their wishes and their concerns and their aims, and particularly the future of their children. So you fight wholeheartedly on the behalf of your constituents. The fact that they put this trust in you is humbling, it's a powerful thing and its not to be taken lightly. "Democracy is a great tool if it is used correctly, but it has to be taken seriously. It can't be used for the wrong purposes. It's like fire. It can be a horribly damaging thing if it's not used correctly. "Above all, don't go into it with a sense of any entitlement or arrogance because none of us are so right or so rich or so powerful that we can walk on human beings. We all should be egalitarian, equal, and that's what I try to do. I try to treat people equally. But I guess for me it's a huge sense of humility that people have chosen me, and it's hard to be worthy. No human being can really carry that. It's worse if you're a minster or even worse if you're a premier or the prime minister, because now you've got 35 million Canadians that carry the torch for us. It's really too much for one human being, it always is, but you do the best you can." Crossing Boundaries "There's an overriding sense that I'm very grateful, and how humble I am for having been given that chance. I've come to realize that we really have some wonderful people in northern Manitoba. They don't always agree with me and they sometimes give me hell, but I probably deserve it, and that's what democracy is all about: different points of view. I tend to fight with the Tories a fair bit, but some of my best friends are Tories. Liberals I have a little more difficulty with because I never know if they're Tories or NDP, they're always all over the place, but there's some good Liberals too. I really get along with some of them as well." Personal Beliefs "Of course, I have my own beliefs, and I have never wavered from them, not to be pig-headed, but because I've gone through them very seriously in my life. Examined them very seriously. And I do believe that social democracy - that the social gospel that Tommy Douglas espoused is the correct way for us to build a wonderful democracy for our people. See 'I've...' on pg. 18 Continued from pg. 17 "It's sharing the wealth in an honest, fair way. Not giving it away either - we're not throwing it out by the bucketful, but in a sense it's the way to develop our economy and our system for the working people of this country. Not just the shots being called by the elites and the powerful and the rich, many of whom inherited their wealth and stayed wealthy. We don't need to represent them, they've got their lawyers and their money and everything they need to have their voices heard, they don't need me. But the poorer people, or the average person does need me because they don't have that kind of power and wealth. In fact, our job is to make sure we balance that, that we make sure that one group doesn't take over everything. That's how I see the job." Family Matters "I profoundly regret having to retire. There's one enemy we can't conquer, and that's old age. For my successor, whoever that may be: This is a very difficult job. Be aware that you should take your family seriously. One of my mistakes was probably not giving enough to my family and instead putting my constituents and job ahead of them. I know I did that and I apologize for that now, though it's a little late with the kids grown up. This job is all consuming. It'll take everything you have. If you don't take time for your family then it'll be too late, because it's not a nine to five. This is everything. That's something you've got to watch." Final Thoughts "As for parting wordsÉI've never regretted going into politics, although I sometimes think that you get a more immediate reward from teaching children, but I have met a lot of wonderful people, particularly the older people. I've actually made a list of about thirty people in this community and all around the north that I've met and worked with. The older people, who've been so fantastic to work with, and who have given me ideas and help and so on. Of course the younger people help as well, but the older mentors teach you things and show you things. Many have passed away, unfortunately. Some were elders in the aboriginal community, but many of them were local people here, and I've always enjoyed working with them, I trusted them, they trusted me, and we worked together. I think we made a good team. I hope we made a difference. Certainly I gave it my best shot. You don't always get everything you want in politics, but I've always put my Flin Flonners before everything else and I hope I've succeeded in that." Gerard Jennissen recently delivered a speech in the Manitoba Parliament in preparation for his retirement in early October, when the next provincial election begins. He spoke for 30 minutes on his life and his time as an MLA. Once he has retired, he intends on getting involved with writing, particularly poetry, one of his loves.9/30/2011
