Stephen E. C. Brathwaite

While Stephen and I only met in Almonte, indirectly we go back a long way. Stephen used to date Margot Millar, who was the daughter of the late Gordie Millar, an air force colleague of my parents. I have heard from my mother that Margot and I used to play in a sandbox together when we lived near one another in Manor Park, Ottawa sometime around 1950 I would imagine. When I met Stephen at an art show being held in the old Town Hall about thirty years ago, he was then dating Margot though they have since gone their separate ways but without a great deal of animosity from what I can gather, at least latterly. Stephen has an attraction for clever, attractive ladies.

Stephen is foremost an artist, and, as I discovered when I was representing him on some contractual matters with the City of Ottawa, a very accomplished artist. I like to describe Stephen as a "six figure artist", a vulgar testimony to his commercial success. There are of course many "successful" artists in Canada, so it is not a complete novelty to be an artist who cultivates more than a Bohemian life- style. Stephen is actually a highly diversified and prolific artist, having great talent in many different "media of artistic expression" (as I suppose a brochure about him might advertise). He is also a very clever businessman,  and he has fashioned his life to include an impressive portfolio of real estate interests in particular, most (if not all) in the Town of Mississippi Mills (which I use specifically to include the former Town of Almonte and the former Township of Pakenham), though his concentration is clearly in the Town of Almonte, right smack dab in the middle of Town. Directly or indirectly he has proprietary interests in real estate investments which I am guessing are worth in excess of five or six million dollars, if not indeed more, though the balancing mortgage indebtedness might easily dilute the impressiveness of that number.

There are those who view Stephen's success in the real estate world with more reserve than I myself, no doubt for the simple reason that Stephen is well known to have catapulted his fortunes using other people's money rather than his own, though I tend to see that trait as clever, manipulative at worst. Still others view Stephen as cunning and untrustworthy, but those are comments I've usually only heard from the likes those who were perhaps out-foxed by Stephen on some mutual scheme.

For my part, I tease Stephen by faking to check for my wallet whenever he leaves the room. Stephen makes no bones about his proclivity to "use" the resources of his friends on every level.