A decorated student-athlete is ready to turn the page towards a future in politics
Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School senior Blaise Evelyn takes off for the nation’s capital for bilingual study at the University of Ottawa while undergoing a first-hand education in government through the House of Commons page program.
“I’ve always been interested in government and politics,” Evelyn said. “Being in Ottawa I thought why not apply? Politics is something I see myself getting into as a career later on in life.
“It all worked out.”
The page program has students spend 15 to 18 hours per week at parliament performing behind-the-scenes help in the House of Commons.
He’s one of 40 applicants from coast to coast to be accepted into the program.
“It’s preparing the house, getting documents, passing notes between MPs,” Evelyn said. “We’re employees of the House of Commons as an institution. It’s completely non-partisan, completely separate from the political process we’re just there to facilitate the working of the chamber.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to see the whole legislative process first-hand.”
The 18-year-old will be studying economics public policy in the immersion program at Ottawa in which at least one third of the programming has to be taken in French at all times.
Being bilingual is crucial to the young student from both a personal and business perspective.
“It’s an important part of being a Canadian,” he said. “It’s important to me. I’ve been to Quebec, really enjoyed the culture and can see myself living and working there.
“More than anything it just opens up opportunities to work right across this country, in Europe, in Africa. It opens up many opportunities.”
An education in economics would not have been forecasted by the DeWintonite even a couple years ago.
He credited teacher Nola Adam for advancing his abilities in math and the school’s culture as a whole for promoting learning since he started as a Grade 1 student.
“It has taught me to embrace learning, follow your passion and that it’s cool to be smart,” Evelyn said. “Here at STS they offer economics as a course in Grade 11 and 12 and through taking that course I fell in love with economics and realized I was good at it.
“The economics and public policy tied in my interest with government and how that all works.”
Balancing a busy workload won’t be an issue in the nation’s capital.
Evelyn has a lot of expertise in time management as a first-class honour student and competitive swimmer with the Foothills Stingrays where he regularly swam at the national and provincial level.
“It’s made me a really disciplined person,” he said. “Sometimes I would not want to do school after coming home from swimming. Or when I’m away at a swim meet sitting in a room doing homework and reading between sessions.
“It’s taught me to suck it up and do it. I might not like it in the moment, but in the end everything always pays off and that’s the biggest lesson there.”
Becoming a high achiever in school and athletics meant making a lot of sacrifices.
“I’ve grown up with it that way,” he said. “Getting into high school I really had to be very efficient in how I worked, really focused and diligent with my school, time management and learning how to do that effectively was huge for me.
“It did mean that I had to sacrifice a bit of a social life with me and friends because there wasn’t time for that, but I enjoyed all of that and wouldn’t do anything differently.”
