Mr. Delaney has been a professor of Physics for several years before he took the office in Ontario Legislature. His family was involved at municipal level in Quebec and Mr. Delaney has seen several elections up close. He believes that the elected office is sacred in what it can do to people’s lives, nonetheless, the people in the office are “ordinary human beings.” MPP Delaney told us that most members of Ontario legislature have been teachers, trustees of school boards or principals.
As an educator, MPP Delaney is committed to the cause of making education better for Ontarions. He recalls 1830 when Ontario – for the first time – made it obligatory for the kids to get educated; it was made universally available to all. Strong, motivated people made public education end the siege it was under. The Liberal government in Ontario has worked hard to decrease dropout rates, to increase the number of graduates every year, so that more people find their way into the job market.
The perception that doctors drive cabs in Canada is very strong in South Asian community. MPP Delaney notes that in past five years, more foreign trained doctors have been incorporated in Ontario healthcare system than the domestic healthcare professionals. The government has provided opportunities to foreign trained physicians to take the necessary courses they needed, upgrade the courses they had already taken and Ontario has accepted their experience in their countries of origin. MPP Delaney says “We can’t control the perception, what we can control is reality.”
Another common topic of discussion in South Asian families is that that they are not paid as much as some other communities members are. While this belief does not ring bells with South Asian youth born and raised here in Canada, dedicated people such as MPP Delaney find it “insulting” that people would say or imply that the mainstream Canadians discriminate or get paid better than the immigrant communities. He suggests that whoever feels discriminated must report it to Ontario Fairness Commission.
MPP Delaney remembers September 11, 2001, when ordinary Canadians welcomed their American neighbors into their homes when the air planes were grounded and they were stranded at airports. He believes that we should highlight what is common between our neighbors than what divides us. Additionally, in the world that we live in, we are influenced by what goes on in Venezuela, Middle East or Alberta. This interconnected and interdependent world, Mr. Delaney says, gives us “the greater sense of who we are as a nation.”
Sikhs, Muslims, Polish, Portuguese, Chinese, Croatians make MPP Delaney’s riding. Mr. Delaney’s office is visited by members of these communities. He believes that all of these communities are politically savvy and know who is responsible and accountable for what. MPP Delaney outreaches his constituents through their places of worship, meetings with executives of various community organizations, community events, schools, at people’s houses etc.
Mr. Delaney’s thinks that families are looking up to the youth to be ambassadors of their province and country to reach out to moms, dads and grandparents to connect with their neighbors and the country. MPP Delaney believes that Canada is our home, and our visits to our parents’ countries are not our homes; “Canada is our home,” he says.
Author: Asma Amanat
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Bob Delaney, a member of the Liberal Party and the M.P.P. for the Mississauga-Streetsville riding, was elected to the Ontario legislature in 2003 and re-elected in 2007. He has served on the board of the Peel Multicultural Council and volunteered with the Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services in Mississauga. Having earned a Bachelor of Science in physics from Concordia University and a Masters in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University, Bob Delaney has taught Internet Marketing at Ryerson University and has co-authored a book on IT consulting. Delaney is an accomplished photographer and writer, and a lifelong hockey goaltender.
Here is an interview with Bob Delaney on MuslimFest by Generation Next’s Naila Baig:
What has brought you to MuslimFest?
This is the 5th MuslimFest and as a Provincial Member it has been my privilege to attend all of them. I come from a riding which has a large and growing Muslim population and for me, personally, I grew up in the milieu. I have never been in a place where I have not had Muslim friends or work associates. So, for me, this is part of my culture too!
What have you appreciated over the years of attending MuslimFest?
Well, I think there are two facets that MuslimFest does very, very well. One is that it provides means of outreach to the mainstream community to come in and demystify Islam a little bit. And, the second thing is that it provides a reverse. It provides a forum for people who’ve come to Canada and are absorbing the Canadian fact to put a Canadian face on Islam, and reconcile the forward direction of both the religion and the Canadian society.
How do you find that MuslimFest contributes to the multicultural aspect of Canada and how important is it for us to host it?
Multiculturalism, even before we called it multiculturalism, is a means by which Canadians come together to forge a Canadian identity. By the sound of my name, if you go back 150 years, you’re going to end up in Ireland. But I have no real connection with Ireland, other than perhaps the Roman Catholic religion, which I still practice. But if you fast-forward 150 years, the great-great-great grand children of a lot of the folks who are coming here from the Middle East, from Africa, from South Asia, will consider themselves mainstream Canadians. It’s just that they’ll be mainstream Muslim Canadians. In the past, it wasn’t always that easy to integrate. We as Canadians built the greatest nation on Earth, by making it home to everybody, whether it’d be MuslimFest or many of the other festive events. One of the things that we do is that we find a way to bring ourselves together to find those things in our lives that we share in common, and to realize that we are all looking for the same things in the future, the same things in our lives, and that we are indeed brothers and sisters under God.
Being a non-Muslim what is your perception of the Muslim community and how has MuslimFest helped your perception? How has it helped the perception of other non-Muslims?
Well, Islam has been a great gift to Canada. We’ve attracted some of the best and the brightest from the Islamic world. It gives us, as Canadians, the opportunity to go into parts of the world that might otherwise present a challenge to us in business, government, and trade. We realize that we have in our midst Canadians who can go and do business with anybody in the world, who can deal with any culture in the world, and that for Canada, throughout the decades, has always been one of our great advantages.
What has been the attendance like from people in your riding at MuslimFest?
Well I know, anecdotally, as I go back and forth people will say, “Oh, I heard you gave your greetings at MuslimFest.” I normally find out when I’m doing a question-answer session in somebody’s living room or meeting people outside one of the several mosques in the riding or in the adjacent ridings, people will tell me that they have seen me. There’s no doubt that people talk about the event, that my neighbours come to the event, and that they remember who was and wasn’t here.
Before we close off, would you have any last words?
Shukriya… and I look forward to being here again next year! (smiles)
