A Ralph of Many Trades and a Master of At Least One

Federal political candidates register their occupations with Elections Canada. I was recently looking through some election results and noticed that my old friend, Ralph Goodale, has had quite a varied career during his time as an MP.

In every federal election he contested prior to 1993, Ralph identified himself as a lawyer. That changed to “business executive” for the 1993 campaign and he has been an MP ever since. For 1997 and 2000, it was restyled as “businessperson.” In 2004, a space was added. In 2006, he went back to being a lawyer. By 2008, it was “business person” again. In 2011, he finally found his true calling and declared himself to be a “parliamentarian.”