Georgette Berube

"Interviewer: How did your becoming involved impact your family life? You mentioned that you’d already had two children. Georgette Berube: Yes, my son was four at the time, he was younger than my daughter. It didn’t impact because I was home every night. Now it would be a little more difficult because I serve for example on two committees and that takes me, I stay there a little longer during the day, but I only had one committee assignment the first time I was there. And you really get very busy only toward the end of the session, like April and May, in the first year of the two-year term. And there was always someone here when the children came home from school. I had a housekeeper then who came in every morning. She’d leave when I got home or my husband got home."

"Interviewer: In a newspaper article that I glanced at, you mention that a woman’s voice was needed in the government, and I wanted to know what you meant by woman’s voice. What could a woman bring? Georgette Berube: I think a woman can bring a little more sensitivity to particularly issues like childcare, education. Not that men are insensitive, but they don’t view it the same way as a woman might. And I think that women proved that they could also handle budget issues. In fact a very dear friend of mine who was a colleague who chaired, was the house chairman of appropriations back in ’78, I guess, or ‘80, ‘76, ‘78, which was unheard of, a woman did not chair the appropriations committee. So you break the barrier, but you have to do it carefully, you have to put your best foot forward and do it with dignity. And if you go up there and slam things around, that doesn’t go with the general public."