{"id":16597,"date":"2016-01-15T00:20:09","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T08:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=16597"},"modified":"2016-01-15T12:06:58","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T20:06:58","slug":"ruimy-in-maple-ridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/01\/15\/ruimy-in-maple-ridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruimy in Maple Ridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Ruimy (photo from Dan Ruimy via cjnews.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing Dan Ruimy is good at, it\u2019s getting people together and promoting dialogue.<\/p>\n

Ruimy is the new Liberal member of Parliament for the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge riding. A 53-year-old son of Jewish Moroccan immigrants to Canada, Ruimy\u2019s parents, Andre and Jacqueline, moved to Montreal\u2019s Cote-des-Neiges in the mid-1950s. There, they raised their five sons and ran Cantor\u2019s Bakery in Cote-des-Neiges and a grocery store in Habitat 67. Ruimy attended synagogue with his family on the High Holy Days. Later, a career in food and beverage led him all over the country for 27 years, as he filled positions at McDonald\u2019s, A&W and Quiznos.<\/p>\n

All that traveling took its toll and by 2011 he was ready to settle down, get grounded in one community and find a place to call home. He chose Maple Ridge and purchased a secondhand bookstore that sold loose-leaf tea. Today, he is still the owner of Bean Around Books & Tea, and credits the tea and coffee shop as having played a pivotal role in his decision to enter politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Bean Around, I saw what happens when you include people in your community,\u201d he reflected. \u201cHaving spent my life in the hospitality industry, my personality is all about social contact. At the tea shop, I saw there was a craving for that, so I\u2019d introduce people to each other and help make connections. It\u2019s quite an amazing thing to watch a 15-year-old engaging an 86-year-old in dialogue. When I started thinking about running for public office, I realized that this is what I could do for my community: create dialogue, bring people together and help people find solutions for the challenges they encounter every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruimy feels strongly about community and what comprises it. \u201cThe Syrian refugees are a perfect example,\u201d he said. \u201cBy including them, we become a stronger community. Isn\u2019t that what Canada is all about? We\u2019re a nation built on immigration. We shouldn\u2019t shun people, we should welcome them with open arms, because that\u2019s our future as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since being sworn in as a member of Parliament in November, Ruimy has hired extra staff for his shop to accommodate a busy schedule commuting to and from Ottawa. While he\u2019s no stranger to traveling for work, it\u2019s different this time, he said. \u201cThis is my home base now, I have a community to come back to. In the past, I\u2019d come back to an empty place where I didn\u2019t know my neighbors and wasn\u2019t involved but, for the first time in my life, I can actually say I\u2019m coming home.\u201d<\/p>\n

He plans to open his constituency office in Maple Ridge soon. It\u2019s \u201ctough\u201d to be Jewishly affiliated in Maple Ridge, he said, given that there are few Jews living there. But, in Ottawa, he\u2019s joined the Canada-Israel Inter-Parliamentary Group. \u201cHaving those roots is important to me, and I think we lose sight when we\u2019re not involved in that part of our community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ruimy said the key issues he\u2019ll be working on are homelessness, affordable housing, helping struggling seniors, and providing assistance to youth trying to find jobs. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of opportunity in Canada but, for some reason, people have difficulty finding the programs,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope to be an agent of change and help bring those opportunities to young people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most exciting moment of his parliamentary career to date was attending the first session in the House of Commons, he added. \u201cFor the first time, you\u2019re seeing the 338 people who got elected and, at that moment, it sunk in how lucky I am to have been given this opportunity. It\u2019s a privilege really and I feel proud that people sent me here to represent them, that they put their trust and confidence in me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauren Kramer<\/strong>, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net<\/a>. This article was originally published in the <\/em>Canadian Jewish News.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Ruimy (photo from Dan Ruimy via cjnews.com) If there\u2019s one thing Dan Ruimy is good at, it\u2019s getting people together and promoting dialogue. Ruimy is the new Liberal member of Parliament for the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge riding. A 53-year-old son of Jewish Moroccan immigrants to Canada, Ruimy\u2019s parents, Andre and Jacqueline, moved to Montreal\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5161,1678,5163,5162],"class_list":["post-16597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-dan-ruimy","tag-liberals","tag-maple-ridge","tag-pitt-meadows"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}