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The senator and his wife steamy water-cooler topic

Their couple photos on Facebook are equal parts normal and jaw dropping.
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Maygan Sensenberger leave courthouse in Saskatoon Tuesday.

Their couple photos on Facebook are equal parts normal and jaw dropping.

Arm and arm at the Magic Kingdom, having fun with some big guns at a shooting range, mugging for the camera over a glass of wine - nary an eyebrow would be raised if the husband wasn't a 69-year-old Canadian senator and the wife wasn't a 23-year-old beauty from Ontario's Cottage Country.

If they were celebrities for the usual reasons, they'd be ZimmerBerger or MayRod.

Whether they like it or not, Senator Rod Zimmer and his wife Maygan Sensenberger have become Canada's water-cooler couple since police allege Sensenberger lost her cool on a flight to Saskatoon last week and ended up in court.

They met through friends, according to Sensenberger's grandmother, herself one year Zimmer's junior.

Sensenberger was one of four siblings in a family from Collingwood, Ont. Her father owned a restaurant.

She was a ballet dancer turned aspiring actor and had been taking university classes in Ottawa, Rita Sensenberger said.

Zimmer was born in Saskatchewan, but called Winnipeg home.

He started his political career as an executive assistant to James Richardson, a cabinet minister under Pierre Trudeau, said Allen Mills a politics professor at the University of Winnipeg and Zimmer's former neighbour.

Zimmer has a lengthy private-sector resumé as well, including executive positions with the Manitoba Lotteries Foundation and CanWest Capital Corp.

His Senate profile boasts he was a champion swimmer, diver and water skier.

He served on several boards, including the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Mills remembers Zimmer as a down-to-earth man who lived modestly, with a nice little home in central Winnipeg.

Zimmer became an important fundraisers for the Liberals in Manitoba and helped mentor a lot of young people within the party, Mills said.

In 2005, then prime minister Paul Martin appointed him to the Senate.

Mills said he noticed Zimmer was ill a few years ago, but that he recovered.

In a statement in the Senate in March 2010 to urge prostate-cancer awareness, Zimmer revealed that seven years earlier, he had been diagnosed with throat cancer and given only a 20 per cent chance of surviving the next two years.

He offered his personal remedy for beating cancer.

When he was given the bad news, Zimmer said, he reacted by saying: "Doctor, the seventh and final stage of death is acceptance. I'm there. So flip me over, zap my backside and let's go.

"A positive attitude generates energy and adrenaline, and fights off disease and counters stress."

Like many senators, he has been almost invisible to the public. There's never been a hint of controversy about him until now.

Sensenberger's grandmother said the couple had dated for years before their marriage, but waited until Sensenberger was 21 before announcing they were together.

They were married on Parliament Hill in August 2011. There were reports Sensenberger is Zimmer's second wife, but Rita Sensenberger denied this.

In court Tuesday, the case against Sensenberger for allegedly creating a disturbance on a plane was put over until today. She faces charges of causing a disturbance and uttering threats against Zimmer, who became ill during the flight.

The Crown withdrew a charge against her of endangering the safety of an aircraft.