not be disappointed if I didn’t get very far despite my competence and work ethic, because I was black, a woman, not Canadian born, married, a mother and Roman Catholic! This was my first real indication that my race, while irrelevant in Jamaica, might matter in Canada. In 2003, constituents … white constituents, in the electoral riding in which I sought to be elected to political office, informed me that the incumbent, a white man who had held the position for the previous 8 years, while campaigning, had chosen to use my race as a reason why people should not vote for me. But I had also been encouraged to run by people who told me I didn’t “fit the profile”. They also told me that I should not let political office change me. Public opinion polls conducted while I held political office, revealed that I would have been re-elected, if I had run again in 2007. Currently, the only black member in the Ontario Legislature is a woman who I invited to run in my riding when I decided not to seek re-election. There were a number of other black candidates who ran in other electoral ridings, for all three Political Parties, but none of them were successful. Had my Party not accepted the person I proposed, the current Ontario Legislature might today, be 2