In the space of a few days, Tony Clement has nudged the chief statistician overboard and braved rapids to rescue a young woman. He sat down to eat leftovers on Saturday night at his Muskoka home, answered a knock at the door, and joined a river rescue that capped a long, strange week for the Industry Minister.
On Tuesday, Mr. Clement, travelling in England, was the government point man in an unusual controversy over the census. On Wednesday, the chief statistician resigned over Mr. Clement's remarks. On Thursday, British Foreign Minister William Hague gave him a copy of his biography of abolitionist William Wilberforce. Mr. Clement flew home, and on Saturday, he went to a wedding.
Then he jumped into the river.
He had good reason. At about 7:30, he was finishing dinner with his in-laws in his Port Sydney, Ont., home when there was a frantic knock at the door. "There's this young lady, this young adult, hysterical, saying, 'My friend, she's drowning, dial 911," he recounted in an interview.
While his wife and father-in-law raced for life jackets, Mr. Clement rushed over the dam behind his house to the banks of the Muskoka River, past four or five distraught people.
"I can see, about 150 yards downstream, a swimmer. She's not moving. She looks like she might be unconscious, but I could see her head. And she was floating downstream. Further downstream there's another set of rapids, so I knew we didn't have a lot of time to save her."
Wearing a T-shirt and shorts, Mr. Clement dove in. A neighbour did the same. And his wife, Lynne, and father-in-law, Doug Golding, ran down the banks to try to head her off downstream.
The swimmer was conscious, and had the presence of mind to drift on her back, keeping her head above water. Mr. Clement started to feel an undertow drag him under, so he struggled toward the bank. But Ms. Clement and Mr. Golding jumped in further downstream, and got a life jacket onto the swimmer and brought her out to the banks.
She sat sobbing on the rocks while Mr. Clement and his neighbours, a little worried she might go into shock, helped put clothes around her and another friend who had been in the water earlier, talking to the distressed swimmer until paramedics came. Her name was Jennifer, she said. She was from Toronto, and Mr. Clement guessed she was about 19.
And soon it was on Twitter. "True story & happy ending," Mr. Clement reported.
On Sunday, Mr. Clement, an avid tweeter, pointed out he was telling a story about a group trying to help, and didn't take credit. He took to Twitter to warn about water safety: the river behind his house is a popular spot for tourists, especially teens and young adults, to "shoot the rapids" by riding the current on their behinds.
"Which is fine, except that fast-moving water has undertows, has eddies, has currents, so you have to know what you're doing," he said.
A week ago, he was in the midst of an unusual storm over a census, travelling in England, tweeting his defence of the decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census because of its "unwanted intrusion and coercion."
But his tweets fell silent for a day when his comments that a new voluntary survey was "good enough for Statistics Canada," pushed the country's chief statistician, Munir Sheikh to resign on principle.
On his way to England's Farnborough air show, Mr. Clement tweeted only twice the day Mr. Sheikh wrestled with his future. One of the tweets read: "Weird event on the British train: announcer comes on & says we're 'going to Hell, next stop.' Scuffle ensues. New voice: 'Please disregard.' "
As the week went on, he reported his gift from Mr. Hague, an outing to see the movie Inception on his return to Canada - "Boy, THAT helped clear my head. …" He also tweeted the weekend wedding and the rescue.
"It was an intense evening but it shows how community works together, even in the face of danger. All you need is love …" he tweeted after the river adventure. "Now, I'm totally knackered, as the Brits would say…"