AFFAN CHOWDHRY
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau campaigned Sept. 28, 2015, with York South-Weston Liberal candidate Ahmed Hussen. Hussen won the seat in the Oct. 19 federal election, becoming the first Somali-Canadian MP. (Liberal Party photo)
Their family histories and beginnings tie them to countries plagued by conflict and upheaval, but in Canada they are making history: the first-ever MPs of Afghan, Somali and Iranian heritage.
Those firsts come on the back of a jump in visible-minority representation in the incoming 42nd Parliament – a measure of growing integration and participation among minority communities. At least 46 visible-minority MPs were elected on Monday, the vast majority of them being Liberal. That figure is 13.6 per cent of the total of 338 seats.
That is a record for visible-minority representation, according to data going back to 1993. Research by now-retired McGill University political scientist Jerome Black showed that the 2011 election was what he called the high watermark – when 28 visible-minority MPs were elected, representing 9.1 per cent of the total number. But 2015 has surpassed that total.
“Having visible minorities in Parliament, whether first- or second-generation, helps ensure their perspective is part of [the] discussion and debate,” said Andrew Griffith, a former federal Canadian civil servant who worked on issues of multiculturalism and citizenship.
“It also facilitates greater identification with Canadian political institutions among visible minorities as they can see themselves reflected in these same institutions,” he added.
Some experts argue that the visible minority representation in the incoming parliament still falls short of the 19 per cent that make up Canada’s total visible minority population.
But for some communities, the breakthroughs are historic.
In Peterborough-Kawartha, Liberal candidate Maryam Monsef, 30, was elected in a riding that the Conservatives have held since 2006.
Her mother, a widow at the age of 23 in Afghanistan, decided to leave a country increasingly under the grip of the Taliban and moved to Canada in 1996 with her three girls. At the time, Maryam was 11 years old.
In her victory speech on Monday night, the Trent University graduate and long-time Peterborough community worker paid tribute to her mother and her courage. “It is not easy raising three girls – three very strong-minded girls – as a single mother,” she said,according to The Peterborough Examiner. “But she did it. And she did it in a country like Canada, where someone like me – 20 years later – can step up here.”
Ms. Monsef, one of the younger members of the Liberal parliamentary caucus, has continued supporting initiatives in her native Afghanistan, co-founding the Red Pashmina Campaign, which has raised $150,000 for the education of women and girls and for maternal health.
Canada’s Somali community also witnessed a first on Monday night with the election of Ahmed Hussen in northwest Toronto’s York South-Weston, a long-time Liberal seat that the NDP grabbed in 2011. His victory was celebrated on social media by the Somali diaspora and noted by international media.