Before
she was 10 years old, Latvian-born Vaira Vike-Freiberga had fled Red Army
oppression, along with her parents in the mid 1940s, and lived with thousands
of other Latvian displaced people in Germany before the family migrated
to Canada, eventually settling in Toronto, 1954. After completing B.A.
and M.A. degrees at the University of Toronto, this future President of
Latvia moved on to McGill University in Montreal, completing her Ph.D.
in Psychology in 1965. During her 45 years in Canada, Vaira Vike-Freiberga
became a distinguished, much respected and internationally-known Psychologist
who had been a full Professor of Psychology at Université de Montréal
for 21 years before returning, 1998, to head up a newly created Think Tank
in her native land. Shortly there after a group of leading intellectuals
in Latvia urged her to run for President in the upcoming 1999 elections.
Four days before her successful election as President of Latvia, she surrendered
her Canadian citizenship so she could be a legitimate contender. As the
first female President of any former Soviet Republic, Vaira Vike-Freiberga
reminded fellow Latvians following her stunning election that Canada’s
policy of official multiculturalism is a model Latvia should follow if
it is to resolve the differences that exist among the large ethnic groups
left in Latvia after 50 years of Soviet rule. [Photo, courtesy The Toronto
Star]