After U.S. President Joe Biden abruptly ended his reelection bid, Vice President Kamala Harris is now in a position to potentially become the first woman to be president of the United States — as well as a potential Democratic presidential candidate with intimate ties to Canada.
Harris spent a few formative years in Montreal, graduating from Westmount High School in 1981. In her own words, she touched upon her time in the city in her memoir, The Truths we Hold: An American Journey. She described arriving in the city as a 12-year-old in the mid-1970s when her Indian-born mother Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer researcher, took a job at McGill University.
Dean Smith, co-owner of the Trevor Williams Kids Foundation, attended that high school at the same time as Harris and he has a niece and nephew who were in the same grade.
“I’m happy to see that she’s a Black lady… She could be the first woman of the United States president, you know what I mean? And because she was here in Montreal, we went to school together, that’s the whole play right there. I’m happy,” he said on Monday.
“That’s the best connection you could ever have!”
In addition to potential bragging rights, Smith noted that her experience as vice-president and the potential for her to run for president prove incredibly inspirational for local youth, especially for young girls.
“It lets them see that they could follow the same path as her … they could do the same thing here.”
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Dean added that his memories of her at Westmount match the person he sees in the news and that she even “smiles, laughs the same way.”
“The same way she is now is the same she was then … no matter where you put her, she gets along with anybody.”
Democrats Abroad Canada chair Erin Kotecki-Vest is hoping Harris “still having family here and having those roots from her formative years” gets Canadians involved in American politics and motivates Americans living in Canada to get their ballot and vote, regardless of their party affiliation.
“Since living here in Montreal and in Quebec, closer to the border, I noticed that sometimes American sentiments in politics kind of seep up,” said Kotecki-Vest, whose voting state is California, where Harris served as attorney general and then senator.
“I would hope that with Vice President Harris … that gives Canadians and the Americans living here a little bit of comfort knowing that they’ve got someone who knows their culture, who knows a little bit about how things work in their area, in their town, in their city, in their province.”
While Democrats Abroad is not officially endorsing anyone as of yet, Kotecki-Vest said she personally feels it makes “perfect sense.”
“I think it’s a very transparent way for the American people who did vote in the primary to take a look at that ticket and say, ‘well, this was the person who was going to be number two regardless if anything happened.’”
Harris is the first woman, Black person or person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.
Biden announced Sunday that was stepping aside amid widespread concerns about the viability of his candidacy.
He wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that Harris has his full support and endorsement to run against Donald Trump for the presidency. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has also endorsed Harris.
— with files from Brayden Jagger Haines and The Associated Press’ Chris Megerian, Zeke Miller and Seung Min Kim
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