claudy lynch

We can isolate ourselves a little from the world as we made it, but we can't say stop it, I want to get off. So, I have come to believe that we must head off some unwanted changes before they rule our lives and our planet. I have been on this quest from the get go. First as a student activist in High School and University. Then, I concluded that economics dictated our fate. So, I went to work for the masters of the economic universe, banks, telecommunications, heavy manufacturing, mining, oil, construction, pulp and paper. I was a policy advisor and speechwriter to CEOs and Chairs of the Board, pushing good corporate citizenship along with profits. Suffering from social schizophrenia, I branched into economic development. Eventually, I gave up on Corporate Canada and moved to the non-profit field and particularly community foundations. And finally I headed for government (the other master of the universe), as a political advisor for the Official Opposition in the Canadian Parliament and several Ministers, including the Minister of Finance and Press Assistant to two Prime Ministers. Finally I ran for office and sat as an MP from Quebec during the intense constitutional interventions of the 80s. After my defeat, I set out to promote democracy and good governance internationally through the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians, having realized that power would not come to the people without a system that allowed it. I also did stints in community development in the French Antilles and the Canadian Arctic, an educational experience in the universal breadth of our society's deficiencies. Along the way, I became a published writer in Canada, in my native Quebec and then in New Brunswick, as a newspaper columnist, CBC radio and TV broadcaster/panellist. Finally, I acquired an American winter home near my son and his family in beloved Oregon. I set up my bi-country website on http://home.comcast.net/~67oswego and started a dialogue with real people.