1ST MPP Placement: David and MPP Michelle Cooper

I had the pleasure of undertaking my Government placement with MPP Michelle Cooper. In my four months in MPP Cooper’s office, I had the opportunity to work on legislation, speechwriting, and constituency issues. I had the wonderful opportunity to support MPP Cooper’s preparations leading up to the announcement of her Private Member’s Motion in December. The motion, seeking to tackle hate crime in Ontario, allowed me to gain insight into the real processes that go into making legislation possible in Ontario.

MPP Cooper represents the dynamic riding of Eglinton-Lawrence and is the closest member from the Government to downtown Toronto. As such, I had the opportunity to spend several weeks in the riding, where I got to know a part of Toronto with which I was less familiar. I was able to attend announcements, cultural events, visits to businesses, and Remembrance Day ceremonies, amongst many more events which deeply enriched my experience in MPP Cooper’s office. I was particularly impacted by a social event MPP Cooper and I attended that brought together Holocaust survivors and their children at the Baycrest Foundation. Survivors’ stories that I heard left a profound mark on me. MPP Cooper took every opportunity she could to have me understand the riding better, and I am quite grateful for the experiences I had.

I also was able to spend over a month working out of MPP Cooper’s constituency office on Eglinton Street. There, I got a firsthand view of how the important work of supporting and helping constituents gets done. I’m grateful for the exposure I had to the work and to the constituency staff who supported me.

From stakeholder meeting to community events to votes at Queen’s Park, I’m grateful for everything I got to learn in my Government placement with MPP Cooper. I thank her for taking on an OLIP intern in her first year in office, and I hope to be the first of many!