MONTREAL — For 25-year-old Alina Maizel, left, there couldn’t have been a more satisfying or productive way to spend the last five months than interning at a Quebec MNA’s riding office in Rivière des Prairies.

Maizel and two others – Sonia Rivka Demory, 28, and Aviv Lubell, 29 – are the first participants in an ambitious Quebec-Israel Committee (QIC) pilot project intended to introduce the province’s younger generation of Jewish university graduates to the province’s political and public life.

Called the Parliamentary Internship Program, it’s run in collaboration with Canadian Jewish Congress, Quebec region. The program has paired the trio with representatives of the province’s three political parties.

Maizel has been working in the riding office of LaFontaine Liberal MNA and Families Minister Tony Tomassi, getting  exposure to – and to some extent, handling herself – the myriad of queries constituents call in or come into the office with.

Demory is matched with Parti Québécois MNA Martin Lemay, of Sainte-Marie-St-Jacques, the party’s immigration and cultural communities critic and chair of the Opposition caucus.

Lubell has been putting in his time with Simon-Pierre Diamond, a former MNA with the Action démocratique du Québec  who is now the party’s executive director.

All three are getting daily experience in the arena of Quebec public and political affairs and are about to move on to Quebec City, where they will be posted until June  at the National Assembly.

“I think I’m really getting a true taste of what it’s like to work in politics,” said Vancouver native Maizel, a Concordia University political science student who moved to Montreal in 2001 and lives in the city’s trendy Plateau district.

Maizel got to meet Premier Jean Charest during the provincial election last fall.

Fully bilingual, she has found the internship program to be an ideal fit, combining her strong interest in “working behind the scenes” with her desire to be politically involved. Maizel worked on the  veteran Liberal MP Marlene Jennings’ campaign last fall and said that it is almost her civic duty to be politically engaged.

Maizel said that she discovered the internship program while perusing career opportunities on a Jewish community agency website. Now, she has her sights set on a career in politics – but not as a politician. “I’d like to be a political attaché or adviser,” she said.

Demory, who holds a degree in communication from the Université du Québec à Montréal, has spent most of her life living near or in Paris. She worked at the Communauté sépharade unifiée du Québec and has found the political experience in Lemay’s office “passionate,” she said in a French-language interview. “You want to change things,” said Demory, who helped prepare notes for speeches by Lemay and did research and analysis.

Demory is interested in immigration and cultural communities, which fits perfectly with Lemay’s Opposition portfolio in the same areas. “It is really an action environment,” she said.

Lubell (who was not available for an interview) holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Concordia University and is an avid student of Middle East history.

Luciano Del Negro, the QIC’s executive director, said that the internship program is seeking to bridge the “divide” that is seen as existing between Quebec’s younger Jewish community and “what takes place in Quebec.”

“It’s a matter of participating in the political process,” he said. “There are other issues, too, like having more members of the Jewish community in the public service and fostering a desire for young Quebec Jews to build their careers here.”

Del Negro remembered when he was involved with the issue of employment equity in the public service and “no one from the Jewish community was hired.

“To have a section of the Jewish community absent from the public service weakens the service itself and the Jewish community.”

The internship program, he said, is modelled after a similar program the Canada-Israel Committee developed for young Jewish adults to work with MPs in Ottawa.

“As a first foray at the provincial level, this gives an opportunity for young people to cut their teeth in Quebec political life, to build stronger connections and a broader understanding of the dynamics within Quebec society,” Del Negro said.

“It’s a sign that young people can help us on all issues, like jobs, health, education, and the get real experience on the provincial stage,” agreed Congress’ regional executive director Daniel Amar.

Del Negro said the QIC will decide in the spring whether to continue the internship program.