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thursday dec 8 2005 serving the community of whitchurchstouffville 32 pagessi including gst 3 bigtime changes look great at christ church anglican opinion 6 calendar 24 sports 26 classified 28 staff photobill roberts santa anticipation a crowd of children waits anxiously on main street saturday for the star of the stouffville kinsmen santa claus parade to arrive for more photographs see page 25 for jim thomas view of the parade see his column on page 7 minister pleased she accepted calling late by hannelore volpe staff writer as the sun lit up the church windows the fiveyearold girls chubby srnall hands care fully held the pitcher to pour the holy water into the baptismal font rev kathryn strachan held her breath but the little one filled the water flawlessly for her baby brothers baptism it was truly one of diose moments when everything falls into place the minister of st james presbyterian church said rev strachan is celebrating her first anniversary at the stouffville church she arrived one year ago on an auspicious date in the church calendar the first advent which fell on nov 28 second career brought rev strachan to stouffville it seems things also fell into place for the single woman who chose tire ministry as a sec ond career before being called to the church she spent years working with the mentally ill at a clinic in the niagara area she quickly grew to admire the courage of those who came to seek help for the illness when people have a heart attack you are pretty happy to see die cardiologist and you dont care who knows it she said but there is still some stigma attached to mental illness working at die clinic was a wonderful edu cation she said yet there was always this nig gling in die back of her mind during this time she saw herself like jonah in the old testament who refuses to be point ed in the direction god wants him to go but as die years passed god became more persistent in her life she had a sense the ministry was like a door flung wideopen to welcome her while she continued pursuing other paths she finally caught up with her destiny when she was ordained in 1997 her first posting was a small twochurch charge southwest of london later she moved to a presbyterian church in brantford the presbyterian church and its ministers sec church page 13 different standard liberal stronach says why arent more women running by caroline grech staff writer maybe its because most of them dont hit the links like the boys or maybe ifs because they are just too smart to get involved one thing is certain however many of canadas women are not tak ing up the call to step into the coun trys political arena before die 2006 election got under way two weeks ago only 21 per cent of the 308 mps in ottawa were women some parties are better than others at electing women however the best being the bloc quebecois boasting 27 per cent of its representatives as women the worst being the conservative party with 11 per cent of its mps being women in ontario 34 per cent of mps elect ed are women- in york region two of the seven mps or about 30 per cent are female canada ranks 44th in the world for having females in government falling from 43rd in the world below afghanistan after new rules there allowed for greater representation by women structural obstacles such as finances or being the primary caregiv er for a young family might be respon- siblefor the lack of women in political positions experts say thornhill liberal mp susan kadis said the age of her children helped her decision to run federally i wouldnt have gone to ottawa if i had young children ms kadis said but finances and family arent the only hurdles women politicians and seepubucpagel9 1r ml v houstoni ometown ford to ft e iim houston ford ltd 57sb main st stouffville 90564b4541 www billhoustonf ord com firsts atgl hi 1 gg9 on reining v6 ob s mustangs bpaiill wwellers 6312 main st stouffville 905 640oho 7