The news of MP Gord Brown’s death shook the community yesterday. Siblings Deb Wilson and Rick Grahame have known Brown since 1983, when he was head of the PC Youth Association. Brown wrote a letter in support of Grahame’s Bakery, the local business the siblings now run, when their parents were having issues with consumer affairs. Wilson says she felt numb after hearing the news.
When Brown was elected MP for Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes in 2004, Wilson’s father gave him a copy of the letter, which now hangs in his office on Parliament Hill as a reminder of his beginnings. Brown would pop in to visit Wilson and Grahame at their bakery regularly. The last time they saw him was in April, when he told them to get on the Butter Tart Trail. Wilson says she never saw Brown angry.
Wilson has played in Brown’s Political Hockey Showdown fundraiser for the United Way every year since it started in 2007. She says the annual hockey game is always fun.
Brown brought many political figures to Grahame’s Bakery over the years, including former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s wife, Laureen, and interim leader of the Conservative Party Rona Ambrose.