Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 19/01) - Lynda Sorensen rushes into the coffee shop, apologizes for being late, and hurriedly orders a latte.

"I'm so excited," she says, unbuttoning her coat. "I allow myself only one (latte) a week."

Sorensen speaking with finance minister Paul Martin from Ethel Blondin-Andrew's campaign headquarters last year.

As part of her health regimen she took a meditation course, and says she can now assume a constant state of relaxation.

"My reflexologist says I have absolutely no tension in my shoulders and my neck," the renowned behind-the-scenes political player says, sipping from a large, froth-topped mug.

That may be a good thing considering the recent chaos within the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Sorensen will remain Premier Stephen Kakfwi's chief of staff until Jan. 2, 2002. She will then end a part of her 16-year political relationship with the premier.

Kakfwi was asked to request Sorensen's resignation after the release this fall of a conflict of interest report.

The committee found her involvement in the secretly recorded taping of then conflict of interest commissioner Carol Roberts undermined the credibility of the premier's office.

"I advised Jane not to go down that road with the conflict of interest commissioner," she says. "If you go down that road with a professional they have no choice but to fight back. That is all they've got."

Kakfwi was visibly upset over the choice he had to make, but in the end the ties between him and his chief of staff were publicly severed.

"I may not be able to be his chief of staff but there will always be a way for me to be involved," she says.

"What I do is accept what happens to me, and then go on. I don't wallow in self-pity, but I do believe what comes around goes around."

Behind the politics

Sorensen sat on the coffee-house couch dressed all in denim. She says having fun with her wardrobe is another way of staying sane.

On the day the legislative assembly held a confidence vote about the situation, Sorensen wore a sexy garter and stocking contraption.

"Under a long green business suit," she clarifies.

Her quirky sense of humour has not hindered her outward sense of style, though. Other daily wardrobe wonders include a bit of tasteful leather here and some fancy stockings there. It gives her something personal to think about when situations become tense.

"I've cried lots," she says when asked how often the prickly political arena has pierced the thick skin she has developed. "And when I cry I howl."

That was the case Nov. 2 when she knew she would resign her post.

"I just went into a horrible cry, and got up the next day resolved on what I had to do."

Public guesses on what is next for Sorensen include running again for Liberal MP. She suffered an admittedly devastating loss in 1984 against Dave Nickerson, who was representing the Progressive Conservatives.

"That is certainly an option now that I'll be out of work," she says laughing, but quickly becomes serious. "I truly believe we have the opportunity as Northerners to send aboriginal people to Ottawa and we should do that."

Sorensen laid in bed for the day after she lost the federal election. But then she got a call from Paul Martin saying the Liberal party needed her and she bounced back.

"I started thinking, where could I turn up, where could I go?," she says. "Because there were a lot of people that were happy that I lost, I thought, how can I unnerve them?"

Sorensen said she is not a vengeful person but "loves to be outrageous."

The most outrageous place for her name to turn up this time around would perhaps be on the jacket of a behind-the-scenes tell-all book.

"I'm writing down what happens," she says, pulling out a leather-bound journal given to her by Western Arctic MP Ethel Blondin-Andrew when Sorensen was the Liberal MP's campaign manager.

"And I'm going to pitch it and do a book."

As she pulled out the journal and read the first page, the prose was obviously more tasteful than many modern-day tell-all bestsellers. Sorensen read what she wrote the day she resigned. The words brought back the pain..

"It has been awful," she says. "My name and reputation is what I value the most, next to my children and my family."

Always smiling, tough as nails

It seems the nurse-turned-politician, who is constantly smiling, rarely misses an opportunity to describe herself.

However, she is a bit of a puzzle. Calculating or just lucky? She would say the latter. Tough as nails or vulnerable? She would say both. Controversial? She would say definitely and deliberately.

"I like the idea people have about me, that everything I have done is calculated," she says, then changes her mind. The perception is actually quite harsh, she adds.

Sorensen described herself as a prissy, six-year-old Catholic girl who questioned nuns about the Bible, and refused to learn to write with her right hand.

She grew up in Saskatchewan, and developed a rebellious streak in her teens.

Sorensen shows her graduation photo in which she and her mother both appear angry.

"Probably because I was out late the night before or something," Sorensen says with laugh.

Christine Klotz, Sorensen's mother, has been extremely vocal about current events and an active Liberal all her life. Sorensen invited her mother, to whom she is very close, as a guest when she received the Governor General's award this past fall.

"She was also a very controlling woman and I took after her."

Lessons in management

In 1965, a very young Lynda Klotz moved to Edmonton to take nursing. She first contemplated taking dentistry because of its high salary. In 1968, she married Edmonton Journal reporter Art Sorensen and moved to Yellowknife.

It was at Stanton Regional Hospital in 1971, after a few years as a nurse, that Sorensen developed her thick skin when she became director of nursing.

She says she was good at dealing with staff turnovers and difficult doctors.

"If I could do that I could do anything."

She quit nursing in late 1973, and was at home caring for the youngest of three children.

At that time she became involved with the Yellowknife Consumers Association. She championed consumer rights on CBC radio and in the local newspaper.

After years of fighting for the rights of consumers, she sat in the gallery of the legislative assembly and said: "I can do that."

She ran for MLA in 1979 and won. She ran for MLA in 1983 and won. She left that position to run for MP in 1984 and lost.

It was shortly after that Sorensen partnered with Kakfwi. He was president of the Dene Nation when she became his executive consultant in 1985.

"I told him I have to be politically active," she says about the pact that was made 16 years ago regarding her allegiance to the Liberals.

"If you take away my right to be active in my party you take away who I am, it is like taking away a child to me."

The two also agreed Sorensen would get the benefit of the doubt whenever someone complained about her.

"And they did," she says.

It was also agreed he would take comments that she is the reason for his success with strength and grace.

"And he did," she adds.

Sorensen is dedicated to the success of the politicians she backs. Kakfwi, for one, is grateful. She wears a stone he gave her when she was going through a personally rough time. She also managed four federal campaigns of Blondin-Andrew.

"I was there at campaign time and that is it," she says, in an effort to dispel more myths that she still plays a part behind the scenes. "In between, she (Blondin-Andrew) runs her own show."

Enjoy the show

For two-and-a-half hours in the coffee shop, Sorensen has told me the condensed version of her political life.