MPP stands out in a dull Legislature

Whatever else he brings to the Ontario Legislature, Peter Shurman has a set of pipes that always makes it sound like three in the morning. When the rookie MPP for Thornhill speaks, it conjures visions of a martini, a cigar and some Sinatra to nurse life's loneliness and regret.

At Queen's Park, which in its current incarnation is a mind-numbingly dull assembly of the earnest, the scripted, the sycophantic on the government side, the discouraged and disengaged on opposition benches, Shurman's personality stands out like a plaid jacket in a church choir.

He ended the session that came to a merciful close last week with an entertaining rant about the "nanny-state mentality" of the ban-happy McGuinty government.

The agenda seems to be to make "it illegal to be a moron in Ontario," he complained. As befits an old radio man, Shurman produced a hit parade of forbidden things for his blog.

"We are spending a lot of time talking about issues that are of little or no importance to most Ontarians," he says. For instance, "I bet that 99 per cent of Ontarians didn't know or care about" the Legislature's prayer habits.

In the Progressive Conservative caucus in which Shurman resides, most attention is devoted to MPPs who might be persuaded to vacate their seat for out-in-the-cold leader John Tory. Having just been elected, Shurman, an energetic 60, isn't among them.

So while the boss's seat-seeking goes on, Shurman has emerged as one of a few Progressive Conservative members with much energy for the battle.

In April, he was ejected from the chamber for an overzealous attack on a minister on the issue of illegal tobacco sales.

He was furious, too, at the recent TTC strike ended by back-to-work legislation and was among those demanding an apology to the city by union leaders.

Then, on May Day, Shurman rose to describe his experience as both a union member ? "I even have strike experience under my belt" ? and a small-business owner.

The former talk-show host ? a licensed pilot and scuba diver ? seems nothing if not game for adventure.

This week, in commenting on the death of an Ontario man after having been Tasered by police, Shurman recalled how, in his radio days, arrangements were made "for me to go and get Tasered myself to find out what it felt like." The plan apparently fell through.

In the WASPy suburban and rural redoubt that is the PC caucus, Shurman stands out like, well, an urban Jew.

In fact, in what might be a first at Queen's Park, he mounted a mezuzah, made of stone from Jerusalem, on his office doors on the same day he gave his inaugural speech in the Legislature.

His grandparents were lost to the Holocaust. His father fled Germany, arriving in Canada by way of England because here "we are all free to practise our religions and to live our lives in any way we choose."

Born in Montreal, Shurman moved to Ontario 30 years ago. He speaks French and has also tried his hand at remarks in other languages on notable occasions for, say, his riding's large Korean or Filipino communities.

Marking the Persian holiday of Nowruz this spring, Shurman said he'd even had the opportunity while celebrating with Iranian Canadians in his riding to cut the rug with a belly dancer.

And though he politely declined, he's still one of the few MPPs in the place who look and sound as if they're having fun.