One August 23, 2016 Filomena gave the Dundas Sunrise Rotary Club a presentation offering insight into who she is, what motivates her, how she got into Politics and a little of what it is like to be a new Member of Parliament. It was an interesting and captivating presentation that involved telling us many stories of events in her life from five year’s old up to the present.  If you were absent today go Listen to Filomena when you get the opportunity. 
 
 Filomena is a proud Hamiltonian, the daughter of a Steelworker raised in a family that knew the meaning of hard work. She grew up in Hamilton and only left the City when she went to University. Filomena obtained her undergraduate degree in Philosophy from The University of Waterloo and then studied at Western University where she obtained her Law Degree.
 
Filomena was a corporate lawyer for six years and is married to a lawyer. At about the time her daughter was born Filomena changed career and became a chaplain at a local high school. She continued in this line of work for twenty years and obviously enjoyed this work finding solutions to problems that people encounter every day to one degree or another.
 
Filomena has been a volunteer with various organizations over many years. One of which she is most proud of is DREAMS which she and a colleague started about twelve years ago. This program involves taking students from Hamilton to work with the poor in the Dominion Republic. It totally changes the lives of the students and in the process they have built over two hundred houses plus schools and recreation facilities in the Dominion Republic to greatly improve the lives of the children there.
 
Why the move to Politics? Filomena told us a story of being from a political family and going canvassing with her mom at five years old and enjoying meeting all the people.
She never thought about this until years later when she was campaigning for Ted McMeakin .When she returned home and her husband asked how it went, she said she loved being out meeting the people and exchanging ideas. The thrill was there she had the “buzz”.
 
After being approached to run for office and discussing it with her family she decided to run for election in our Riding. Filomena won the Election and is our representative in Canada’s 42nd Parliament. She is in Politics to serve the people of this area and praised Rotary for the work we do in service in our Community and around the world.
 
Finally, she gave us an overview of life in Ottawa with Daily Briefings, meetings etc. While it has been a very steep learning curve the work she enjoys best is the Committee work because with her legal and chaplaincy background she is in a good position to be effective in getting new legislation through the house.
 
Marie-Louse, who was once Filomena’s Teacher, thanked her for the presentation.