My (Brilliant) Career Part III

ik - This is from today's Ottawa Sun, about an Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP). I dunno. Sounds like a great plan to me. Call me Tony!

HAVANA -- Last week, as legislators scrambled to explain a hike in power costs, a Liberal MPP was holed up in a ramshackle house near the beach in a seedy seaside town east of the Cuban capital.

Sun photographer Greg Henkenhaf and I tracked Tony Ruprecht -- MPP for the Toronto riding of Davenport and a former political science prof at Carleton University -- down to Guanabo, a gritty town with no major tourist hotels.

Ruprecht, 63, is a frequent visitor to Cuba. Documents obtained by the Sun indicate he has been to Cuba on at least three other occasions since the current legislative session began Oct. 11. His stays in Cuba totalled at least seven weeks in that 6 1/2-month period.

The travel documents show he flew to Havana Oct. 30 of last year, returning Nov. 13. Other documents show he spent two weeks there from Jan. 29-Feb. 12 of this year, as well as March 6-20.

Reached in Cuba by phone last week, it took Ruprecht many attempts to recall how many times he had been to Cuba since the Legislature started sitting. Eventually, he admitted he could have visited the Communist Caribbean island as many as five times since October.

"We went through this already," he said. "I am not denying that I may have been four times. I may have even been five times."

Ruprecht said he visits Cuba frequently to learn Spanish and Portuguese, so he can better communicate with his constituents. He also said he was visiting a friend who is in a coma.

"I will probably keep on going back until I am certain that I am able to speak enough Spanish and Portuguese. That's the reason I am coming to Cuba -- to learn the language and I will continue that. The reason I am doing that is because I want to make sure I communicate well with my constituents."

(The CIA World Factbook lists Spanish as the only official language of Cuba. Portuguese is not a native language of that country. When I told a Cuban guide Ruprecht claimed one of the reasons he was there was to learn Portuguese, the guide's response was, "You have got to be kidding.")