There is a particular kind of honesty that happens at a barbecue that does not happen anywhere else in this job.
This summer, I hosted a free Community Barbecue at the Churchill Building parking lot in Thompson. No speeches. No formal agenda. Just food, conversation, and a chance for the people of this city to meet their MP without any of the usual distance that comes with politics.
I want to be honest about why events like this matter to me. Churchill–Keewatinook Aski is the fifth largest federal riding in Canada — 73 communities spread across three-quarters of Manitoba. It would be easy for an MP representing a riding this size to become an abstraction to the people they serve — a name on a letter, a face on a website. I refuse to let that happen.
So we set up the grill. We invited everyone. And for a few hours, this was not a constituency office and an MP, it was neighbours sharing a meal.
I heard concerns about housing. I heard hopes for the new radio programme launching this summer. I heard from a grandmother who wanted to talk about her grandson's hockey team, and from a young person who asked me a sharp, well-informed question about federal infrastructure funding that I am still thinking about.
That is constituency work. Not the speeches. The parking lot conversations.
To everyone who came out — thank you for trusting this office enough to show up, eat with us, and tell us what is on your mind. We are listening. We will keep showing up.