Right, Left and Centre: The Poltics of Dome Canadians by Dave Jaffe: Chapter 44: Part Two

  Change Your Name, Change Your Status. Part Two by Dave Jaffe


        Arthur Ross never did find the correct reply to the WASP woman's question demanding to know why Jewish women at McGill University dressed up while Wasp women didn't. At least he didn't find the correct answer to the question when he was young. Still, years later as a successful lawyer he did figure out the right reply. Yet by then he didn't care.
     Still as  an undergraduate he ploughed through many courses in political science, history and economics. He scored high in exams. Also like many young Canadians bent on success, he joined the Liberal Party of Canada.
       Ross had no time for the Progressive Conservatives, who he knew hadn't been very welcoming to Jews in the past. As for the newly-formed New Democratic Party, it leaned too far to the left for Ross. "The Liberal Party is the party of power," a professor of political science said in a course that Ross was taking. "In the nearly 100 years of Canada's life, Liberal governments have usually run the country." For example the professor pointed out that in 1963 which was the time he was lecturing, Liberal governments ruled in both Ottawa and Quebec City.
     Ross knew how powerful the Liberal Party was and soon took out a membership in the party. Then he ran for the university party's executive and ended up on the party's policy committee. Here, he made many contacts and also ended up meeting leading Liberal lights, like Canada's Prime Minister Lester Pearson and Quebec's minister of Natural Resources, the fiery Rene Levesque.
     Ross studied hard too. He graduated from the faculty of arts with an honours degree in political science and then enrolled in the Faculty of Law so as to be a lawyer. He was on his way to affluence. He printed up a business card with his soon-to-be adopted name on it. 'Arthur Ross' it said. Still in law classes the teachers still referred to him as "Arthur Rosen".
     Ross studied French too and became quite fluent in the language. As French Canadian nationalism and separatism were now rearing their heads, he knew that if a lawyer couldn't speak French in Quebec he or she was operating with a big handicap.
    1969 should have been a great year for Ross, and in a way it was. He graduated from the Faculty of Law and was now an accredited lawyer. Yet there were a few speed bumps on his road to success.