Karina Gould’s baby takes over Parliament Hill
After Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould told her family she was pregnant, next up was the Prime Minister. “I gave him a call and asked him what was the protocol for having a baby in Cabinet,” she recalls. She says he replied, “That’s excellent, Karina, congratulations. We’re going to make this work.”
On Tuesday, Gould returned to work after 10 weeks of maternity leave, bringing her new, approximately 14-lb constituent, Oliver. She attended a Cabinet meeting and question period, and brought Oliver back to her office in the car seat she has attached in her ministerial car.
When she’s not in Ottawa, Gould lives in her riding of Burlington, Ont., with her husband, Alberto Gerones, whom she met in Mexico and who was previously a manager at a veterinary clinic. Gould says her current role doesn’t require as much travel as her previous position of parliamentary secretary to the minister of international development, but she is newly dividing her time between politics and the child with whom she has read two books so far (Look Look Outside and If I Were a Puppy). Gould has stacks of diapers on her office shelf and sets down a mat by her desk where Oliver can do some kicking, and as the first sitting Cabinet minister in Canada to give birth, on her first day back, this is how she makes it work.
