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Chapter 1Walking HumblyContrary to the advice of more experienced members of my campaign team that I should never go out campaigning by myself, I decided that I needed to do exactly that. I was nervous about what the experience would be like. This was a self-imposed test and I hoped to be able to control how things went, to any extent I could. Most of all, I wanted to avoid embarrassing myself in the company of members of my team.I had never, ever been in this kind of situation before. I felt vulnerable. I felt anxious, uncomfortable, even a bit afraid. I thought of how I felt when strangers came to my door, uninvited and without warning. They always wanted something. My reception could never be described as warm, under those circumstances. Yet here I was, exposing myself to the possibility of precisely that kind of response, and to think, I was going to be doing this, a lot, for the next few months. I had obviously not given enough thought to what I was agreeing to when I agreed to run for political office.I couldn’t have had a more perfect day for a walk in the riding of Scarborough East. The sky was almost perfectly clear, the day sunny but not too warm. The few clouds appeared distant and destined to stay intact. There was no sign of rain and there was little movement in the air. I had chosen a Saturday morning hoping that would improve my chances of finding people at home.I parked my car some distance away from the first house that I would visit. I had selected an unfamiliar street where I didn’t expect to encounter anyone I knew. Although the particular street was unfamiliar, it was close to the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), a place I knew well from my many years as a student there.With some candidate cards and the voters’ list for that area in hand, I approached a man who was standing outside the house. He wasn’t working in his garden, and he didn’t seem to be working on the car that was parked in the driveway. He was by himself, but he looked preoccupied. Maybe around five and a half feet tall, he looked to be in his sixties, maybe early sixties. I thought, or perhaps I hoped, that he wouldn’t see my presence as an intrusion.“Good morning, sir,” I said, choosing that greeting as a good balance between being pleasant and seeming too familiar. I didn’t think that “Hi, how are you?” would have been appropriate given the reason I was there, although under normal circumstances, I would have felt comfortable greeting him that way.“Are you Mr. … ?” I asked, referring to the name shown on the voters’ list for that address.“I am,” he said blandly, not hinting as to whether or not I was imposing myself on his morning.“I am Mary Anne Chambers, the Liberal candidate for this riding,” I said, following the sequence that the team had determined for our door-knocking outings, and I handed him my candidate card.Then I mentioned that I’d noticed from the voters’ list that someone by the name of … also lived at this location. It was a woman’s name, with the same last name as his. My heart sank to somewhere close to the ground when the man told me that person was his wife but she had passed away three weeks before. My first house! I told him I was very sorry to hear about his loss, asked him if he was doing okay and wished him well. I then turned to leave, at which point he asked me what I had wanted to speak to him about.“It’s not important,” I told him. “It can wait for another time.” I asked him to take care of himself and I moved on.I crossed the road in a semi-conscious attempt to move as far away from the first house as possible, quickly walking past eight or nine houses while I tried to compose myself. I then took a deep breath, turned onto a driveway, walked up a few steps to a front door and rang the doorbell. A man opened the solid door but left the storm door closed while saying, “I am tired of people trying to sell me stuff.”I cringed and heard my voice say, “I am not trying to sell you anything, sir. Wait, I am. I am actually selling myself!”The kind man obviously saw how embarrassed I was, opened the storm door, and said, “Speak to me.” I went through the motions and left as quickly as I could. My second house!I did a few more houses without incident before deciding that I had had enough for my first outing, turned around and headed back in the direction of my car, still on the other side of the road from the first house. As I got closer, I noticed the man at that house was still in his driveway and he was looking in my direction. I then heard him calling out, “Hello, hello.” Wishing I could disappear, I tried to pretend he was calling out to someone else. He crossed the road to meet me, his arm outstretched, holding my candidate card.“This is you, right?”“Yes, it’s me,” as if acknowledging guilt.He then said that after I left his place, he had taken the card to some of his neighbours and told them about me. He said he told them I was the kind of person they needed in government. He believed I would look after their interests.He told me he was sure that he had secured seven votes for me. I thanked him most sincerely.When I got to my car, I sat still for several minutes, trying to breathe normally, processing all that I had just experienced.