Donovan Martin - Someone Ought To Tell This Guy That He Is A Politician
Usually when I sit down with a candidate, I have to explain that this is a personal profile and not about specific policies or promises. I also explain that I will ask some political questions but only to get an idea of passions, motivations, and thought processes. Sometimes, I have to explain this more than once. Candidates are usually so excited about their plans that they can't talk about anything but politics.
Not so with Donovan Martin. Quite the opposite from the Liberal candidate for Notre Dame. He is not your typical politician. Actually, I think someone should tell him that he is a politician.
It is not because he is not aware of the issues. He can spout out numbers, statistics, trends, percentages as well as anyone. He has been managing Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette's Constituency Office for over a year. As such, he has been learning, networking, leading, listening, and helping. He says that the biggest lessons he has learned from Ouellette is the power of positivity and the road to progress is easier to navigate if you have a vision of where you are going. He also never brought up the Donovan Martin foundation with me. A Foundation dedicated to tell the stories of Winnipeg's homeless in order to foster empathy. Most ordinary politicians would high-light that first and foremost. Also, he never actually talked directly about his managing the office of a Member of Parliament. I had to put two and two together as he talked about working with Rob.
His modesty also extends to his family. His two sons and one daughter all sound like extraordinary young people who already have resumes that made me very jealous. He describes them as "ok kids". For the record, that is the way he describes them verbally. But, just the mention of any of those three makes his eyes well up a little.
Even those his children have achieved things that many of us can only dream about, he is most proud of their volunteering at the Caribbean Pavilion at Folklorama. One dances, one in involved with limbo, and the third plays the steel drum. Donovan is a little obsessed with Folklorama. After all, that is where he met his wife. But, you know he really only became serious about Folklorama in 1996 when he was the male Ambassador General. That is a serious accomplishment based on merit and one he should be proud of and he was proud of that until he found something better to be proud of when his oldest son became Ambassador General this past summer.
He also became a typical politician for a second when he was telling me the percentage of previous ridings formed the new riding of Notre Dame. But, that was just for a second. He wants to represent the people of Notre Dame because that is his life-long neighbourhood. He, his brother, and sister were raised by a single father who worked evenings as maintenance in the HSC. While he was growing up, no one locked their doors, and every house had kids, and every parents pitched in to help families where they needed. Also, the schools were open in the summers, evenings, and weekends. Sports was his babysitter and he had access to sports and sports equipment through the open schools. He was a gym rat before that was even a thing. He loved all sports but his favorites are soccer, football, and basketball. He had some great coaches growing up that helped shaped his life.
So, he has been coaching kids in various sports all of his adult life. He left a lucrative corporate job because the demands of the job didn't allow for him to coach. Every job he has taken since, he has talked about his commitment to coaching before he has talked salary. The kids growing up today don't have the luxury of access to schools whenever they want, so he wants to make a strong personal contribution to coaching to provide for the kids in the neighbourhood. At one point in his life, he was working in Brandon and made two round trips between Brandon and Winnipeg five days a week. For those that aren't math whizzes, that is 800 km/day.
And, I couldn't help but notice that Donovan is black. Manitoba will be celebrating 150 years next year and we have never had a black MLA. There are several candidates running this year from the three major parties so odds are good that history will be made. I know Donovan has gotten some media coverage by virtue of being black and I asked if that was detracting from his message. This was the first time in our hour and a half together that he hesitated before answering. No, he said, I understand how important this is for our history, and I know how important it was last year when Marcus was elected to City Council, but, it is just that........well, I don't just want to be Manitoba's first black MLA, I want to be Manitoba's first black Minister, and maybe more......
Donovan was inspired to seek political office by a personal issue. He ran for City Council because of an issue of sidewalks and worries about the safety of his children. He just missed getting elected but in the process managed to resolve the sidewalk issue and more issues as well. That was incredibly inspiring to him. He showed him the power of the individual in the system and that if you know the right channels, you can convince the political system to do the right thing. It gave him a profound sense of hope.
Right now, he is working about 20 hours/day trying to be the Liberal MLA of Notre Dame. He was worried that he would look tired in the picture. That is as close to a vain comment as I could get out of him. I told him that the bad news was that if he got elected that those long hours wouldn't change. He corrected me. Right now, he is working for himself. If becomes MLA, he will be working for the constituents, so he will ensure he gets adequate sleep in order to serve the electorate.
Yeah. This guy has dreams and he is an idealist. He has been in the system and he is not jaded. One of our longest subjects of conversation was scrabble. Apparently, he is pretty competitive. Well, I played in a league. Trust me, I know the world of competitive scrabble. So, I am very sure that most of the dreams of this guy with the infectious laugh, who doesn't realize he is a politician, will come true. But, I know one of his dreams will not bear fruition. He is not going to be able to beat me in scrabble.
How do you know that if you don't try? I await the match.
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