Prime MInister Justin Trudeau meets with Handsworth student Brogan Maloney in West Block on Pariliament Hill in Ottawa, Nov. 1, 2022. | Handsworth Secondary School

By Mina Kerr-Lazenby, North Shore News.

It's not every day a secondary school student's itinerary involves hobnobbing with the prime minister of his country. Then again, Wednesday, Nov. 2, hadn't been like any other school day, and Brogan Maloney, a ninth-grader at Ecole Handsworth Secondary, isn't like any other student. 

That day Maloney had been in Ottawa shadowing his uncle, James Maloney, Liberal MP for the Etobicoke Lakeshore district, as part of the North Vancouver school's Take Our Kids to Work Day.

He had toured Parliament buildings and met with political bigwigs, but his most notable experience of all had been sitting down with his uncle's colleague – or, as the rest of the world knows him, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

"It was awesome," said Maloney, reflecting on the experience afterwards. 

He said he had been nervous to meet Trudeau, especially when standing outside his office, waiting to be ushered in, but the Prime Minister had immediately put him at ease. 

"He is a really nice person," he said. 

Chewing the political fat with the country's leader had sparked an interest in politics for Maloney, who said, prior to the event, he hadn't really thought about what he would do for a career.

It hadn't been his first foray into the political sphere – in 2019 he aided his uncle's campaign in Toronto, knocking on doors, handing out flyers at subways stops and helping deliver lawn signs – but he had never considered it as a career for himself until his day donning the politican's hat.