{"id":14283,"date":"2016-05-18T18:33:30","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T22:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=14283"},"modified":"2016-05-19T15:04:31","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T19:04:31","slug":"auroras-aidan-slind-on-her-majestys-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-aidan-slind-on-her-majestys-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora’s Aidan Slind — On Her Majesty’s Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Monday is Victoria Day and while many Canadians might be raising a few beers to mark the unofficial start of the summer, Aurora\u2019s Aidan Slind is probably raising a glass to mark the Queen\u2019s Official Canadian Birthday.<\/p>\n

Mr. Slind, a former member of the Queen\u2019s York Rangers Army Cadet Corps, says he \u201ccan\u2019t really say for sure\u201d where his interest in the Crown came from, but it is an interest that led him last summer into the corridors of power and into the very heart of the Crown in Ontario.<\/p>\n

A student at the University of Toronto, Mr. Slind is an active member of the Monarchist League of Canada. Through the League, he won the coveted spot as summer intern at Queen\u2019s Park in the office of the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, the Queen\u2019s representative in the province. <\/p>\n

\u201cMore than any sense of personal accomplishment, I was just honoured that I would have a chance to play a role \u2013 admittedly, a very small role \u2013 in an institution that goes back hundreds of years in this Province and that I would be able to walk the halls and go to events that have been walked and attended by a great many Ontarians throughout our history, and that I would get to work to further the work of that institution I believe so strongly in,\u201d Mr. Slind told The Auroran on May 5. \u201cIt was mostly a feeling of being honoured to be a part of something much bigger than myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time he arrived at Queen\u2019s Park for the first day on the job, it was very much a matter of hitting the ground running. Assigned very clear tasks on the very first day, he was off to events with Lieutenant-Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell on the second, and this became very much a part of the routine. Accompanying Ms. Dowdeswell on a number of engagements, he was particularly thrilled to accompany the Lieutenant-Governor to Aurora last summer where she presided over the Rangers\u2019 annual cadet inspection at the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex. And, among those inspected, was Mr. Slind\u2019s younger brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the good things about the internship is because there is only one intern you actually do meaningful work in the office,\u201d he says. \u201cI had friends, for example, who were working internships with the Federal Government over the summer where they would just be pushing pencils because they couldn\u2019t find enough jobs for the number of interns. Because there was only one of me, I was doing all manner of things from communications to event planning\u2026and I got to be with Her Honour with by brother on parade, which was very special thing for me. You\u2019re not just one cog in a very big machine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I felt very special about the Lieutenant-Governor\u2019s suite is that people are very aware of the office in which they work for and, to some degree, represent, of its history, its traditions and they conduct themselves accordingly. It was a fascinating environment to work in to say the absolute least and there were leaders from all aspects of Ontarian public life who came to the suite, figures from the military and civil service, leaders in the Aboriginal communities, and leaders of every civil society organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes being on the inside of an organization which you have admired so long from the outside can be a daunting task, ultimately shaping your view of the institution. This is the case for Mr. Slind, who comes away from the experience with nothing but positive things to say about the Crown and the woman representing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gave me a better understanding of what it takes to give people on the outside the impression they have,\u201d he says. \u201cYou really do see what it takes to uphold an institution that is held to such high esteem by people like me. The pace at which [Ms. Dowdeswell] works is astounding. I talk about the staff having very high professional standards, but Her Honour has standards as high or higher, but she is also a very considerate person to work for who understood the needs of the team. Very high energy, great attention to detail, very considerate to her staff, she is a very engaging person to be around.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo often we think of government as Federal, Provincial, municipal in descending order of importance but, in reality, they are all critical to the way our lives work. Even though I was in an apolitical office, I got a fantastic view of just how important the Provincial government is.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Monday is Victoria Day and while many Canadians might be raising a few beers to mark the unofficial start of the summer, Aurora\u2019s Aidan Slind is probably raising a glass to mark the Queen\u2019s Official Canadian Birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3In","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 22:25:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}