Opening the Cabinet

My first time in front of Executive Council (aka “Cabinet”) I was more “below” than “in front.” The Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the day, Rory Beck, was making a presentation to the Catherine Callbeck Cabinet, and I was asked to accompany him and run a laptop showing a Harvard Graphics presentation. I was positioned — I’ve never been sure whether it was by design or accident — on a chair about a foot lower than the rest of the chairs in the room at a small child-sized desk. If the effect was to make me feel diminished in the presence of greatness, it worked.

Amazingly enough, the presentation went off without any technical glitches, and I emerged with my contract for services intact. I was so relieved, I celebrated with a steak dinner at the CP Hotel.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll have the pleasure again, albeit under much different circumstances. Cabinet is holding meetings in various different locations around the province this summer, and tomorrow they hit New London. The L.M. Montgomery Land Trust is making a presentation; Hon. Marion Reid, our President, will lead things off and I will follow up with a brief “this is what we do and how we do it” nuts and bolts session.

I’ll let you know tomorrow afternoon what sort of chair I get to sit at, and whether my [[laptop]] explodes or not.