We’re into the middle of January and I’m looking forward to the return of Parliament at the end of January. Yes, I’m a bit of a political nerd, but I’m also eager to watch my fellow New Democrats continue on their successful agenda of standing up for Canadian families.

Canadians took a good look at Ottawa and they didn’t like what they saw – ongoing scandals, divisive politics, inaction on important issues. So it’s no coincidence that on May 2, 2011, 4.5 million Canadians put their trust in the NDP to fix Ottawa and made history by electing an amazing team of New Democrats as the Official Opposition.

I’m proud that the New Democrat team has already delivered on that promise of change, with record numbers of women and young leaders in Parliament. They have set a new tone in Parliament and for the first time in decades, progressive Canadians from every corner of the country – including Quebecers, are united under one (orange) banner.

On the other hand, the Conservatives are continuing their agenda of putting their well-connected insiders first, and for failing to act on the issues that matter to Canadian families: job creation, health care, pensions, and lifting First Nations communities out of poverty. Canadians are now seeing a clear choice with a New Democrat team that will ensure families come first and nobody is left behind.

Going into 2012, NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel and the entire caucus remains as committed as ever to carrying out Jack Layton’s dream for a better Canada.

“The outpouring we saw upon his passing showed us something we all knew,” said Turmel. “The values Jack Layton held dear are Canadian values. He had a dream for a Canada built on hope, optimism, perseverance and the rock solid belief that by working together, there is no challenge we cannot overcome. That’s a truly Canadian dream.”

No doubt, New Democrats will always carry on Jack Layton’s legacy by working together, and by forming a New Democrat government that will always put Canadian families.

Rupinder Kaur is the Press Secretary to New Democrats.

“We [the Liberals] are keeping our promises,” was the overall slogan Wednesday evening from a cheerful Glen Murray, Ontario Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities after his announcement to members of the press for a whopping 30% discount off post secondary tuition fees.  With the McGuinty government paving the way for some of the lowest tuition fees in the last 10 years, it is easy to see why the Minister was eager to spread his cheer in what he believes is an education promised fulfilled to Ontarians. “We didn’t promise [for education] $7 or 8 billion like the Conservatives did, and we didn’t promise $20 billion like the NDP did. We just promised $1.5 billion and we met that commitment in January.”

As student eligibility for this new Ontario grant is only applicable to full time university and college students in Ontario, it was not difficult to spot the large number of part time students left out of this new equation.  When asked what sort of options are available to these part time students instead, Mr. Murray eagerly responded to reporters that there are many social assistances and financial options in place to assist these students depending on their situations and that often these options are left unknown. In hopes to create greater awareness, Mr. Murray even offered one college professor in attendance, whose students consist mainly of part timers.

As the Mr. Murray continued to beam with pride throughout the evening with the Liberal’s strong commitment towards education he was also very vocal in his opposition to Opposition.

“I think the Conservatives should be apologizing to Ontarians. This is a party when it was in power cut half a billion dollars from colleges and universities. Hundreds of thousands of Ontarians who were fully educated and had done very well in high school could not get into colleges and universities of Ontario because they had closed so many seats and taken so much away from the system.”

Rob Leone, Member of Provincial Parliament for Cambridge and Official Opposition Critic for Training, Colleges and Universities expressed disappointment with the fact that the government is going further into the red to fund this so called tuition rebate.

 
“Premier McGuinty cannot keep spending money he doesn’t have. The Liberal Government has failed to introduce any new ideas to rein in government spending. It is clear that their plan is to pay for this policy with more borrowing,” stated  Rob Leone, MPP for Cambridge.

The Liberal Government’s tuition rebate will cost Ontarians an additional $485 million every year and will only increase an already unprecedented $16 billion deficit. The McGuinty Liberals have failed to introduce any new ideas to rein in government spending in an effort to account for the additional funding commitments.

In addition to the unaccounted costs, postsecondary education stakeholders are speaking out against the Liberal Government’s tuition rebate because it is a band-aid solution that only affects a small portion of Ontario’s students and does not prevent tuition fees from increasing.

As an enthusiastic Mr. Murray ensures his audience that the McGuinty government is working hard on making post secondary education affordable, it will ultimately be the students themselves who will be the judge of just how effective these changes will be for them.

By Anna Katryan

The 17^th Conference of Parties of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, also known as COP 17 was held in Durban. It was attended by representatives from over 195 countries. Apart from officials from different nations, various stakeholders, especially non-governmental organizations and passionate youth delegates also attended the conference to send a collective message of urgency, which seemed to have been missing from the negotiators. The conference aimed at addressing the fate of the Kyoto Protocol which is set to expire in December 2012. Kyoto Protocol was a legally binding agreement formulated in 1997, which required developed nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by seven percent from their respective 1990 levels. However, from the onset, the United States, one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases decided not to ratify their commitment to the agreement.

The state of the world since the Kyoto accord has dramatically changed; new industries have surfaced, nations like China, India and Brazil have become highly industrialized, and consequently, their emissions have grown immensely over the past two decades. Thus, the main topic of discussion at COP 17 became the one of fairness and equity. The disparities between developed and developing countries heavily hindered the negotiations, each expecting the other to take a larger level of responsibility in reducing emissions. This discrepancy became apparent when Indian Environment Minister, Jayanthi Natarajan criticized Canada’s rather careless role in the Kyoto treaty as she claimed that the government had “signed the agreement and junked it in a cavalier manner…without even a polite goodbye.”

Conversely, Peter Kent, Canada’s Environment Minister, clashed with developing countries, accusing them likewise, for their lack of obligation.

So what was the final result of this event where environmental issues seemed to have been blurred in context of political and economic agendas? While they decided to extend the Kyoto Protocol to 2017, countries have been given until next May to submit their final decision.

After Canada’s appalling performance at Durban, it was not a surprise when Mr. Kent announced the country’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, sighting that it “does not represent a way forward for Canada.” It was made clear that a strong legally binding framework that requires countries to respond to the pertinent issue of climate change is not a direction that the country has decided to move towards. Rather than taking a step forward, it seems that Canada has done the opposite. It is not as if Canada has had a clean and positive emission record; but rather, its emissions have increased immensely since its 1990 levels.

On the other hand, the EU played a major leadership role at COP17 by assuring that they will continue their commitment to Kyoto. Moreover, a Green Climate Fund, which hopes to collect $100 billion dollars per year to finance adaptive management measures in poor countries, was also negotiated at the conference.  However, the sources of revenue that would fund this imitative were not established.

Overall, Durban symbolised the malfunction of international diplomacy. The collision of political, economic and foreign relations agendas only added to the intricacy of the arbitration process.  It seemed that the countries involved failed to see that the end goal is a global one, not national, where countries need to have differentiated and divided responsibilities. The criterion of emission liability was needed to be established. The final result was merely an agreement to further discuss a tool of legal force that would compel countries to curb their emission levels; no definitive deal on the obligation levels expected of developed and developing nations, or how to go about achieving emission reduction, was achieved. Kyoto Protocol’s main drawback is that it does not have a monitoring framework to measure and ensure compliance, a problem that was overlooked at COP17.

The truth is that emissions will continue to increase at an alarming pace until 2020, after which negotiations to incorporate China and India in a global deal will be planned.  The lack of any stringent agreements, loopholes in the Green Climate Fund venture, failure of cooperation, all point to the low magnitude of emergency exercised at Durban.  The inactive role of United States, now adopted by Canada, and the divergent viewpoints of developed and developing nations, play a vital role in the collapse of Kyoto. Time is of the essence and it is crucial that countries stop playing the blame game and start travelling the road towards climate change mitigation; however, it seems that there is still an unfinished roadmap. Creative solutions, concrete measures, political will, and compromise were absent at COP17.

As an environmentalist, I am thoroughly disappointed in results achieved at Durban as well as in the position Canada has chosen to assume.

By Puninda Thind

“I would advise people against purchasing an education at a college where the college isn’t regulated and reviewed by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Newspapers like your own can be very helpful in that. Because we’re trying to get that kind of information out so interviews like this are very helpful.”

In October 6^th’s Ontario elections, McGuinty Liberals made a number of significant promises for more Ontario students to have access to postsecondary education. One of those promises is already in effect as of January 1^st, 2012. McGuinty government is giving $1,600 a year credit to families that earn less than 160,000 to help them send their kids to postsecondary education.

Another promise McGunity Liberals made was to open a college campus at a high growth area like Brampton, Milton or Markham. Generation Next got in touch with new Ontario Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Mr. Glen Murray (MPP from Toronto Centre) to seek update on government’s priorities and what can Ontarians expect from Liberals in the next four years.

Here is our conversation with Minister Murray:

GN: The government committed to provide a $1,600 tuition break to families for facilitating post-secondary education. How does the government plan to pay for this?

It is being paid for by reducing expenditure on lesser programs. Some of the older programs will be phased out and there will be reduction in the administrative costs. So some savings will be achieved because some students will require less student’s aid in the future. So offsetting expenditure will pay for us.

GN:  What is the eligibility for this?

This is a program that’s specifically designed for today. By that I mean that the current conditions in the economy are making it very hard for some families to keep their kids in school. Many large families can’t even afford students entering college or university or enter the second or third year. So this program applies to any student whose family income is $160,000 or less, who has completed high school in the last four years. This is for low-income families and more modest income families, and it’s for students and families who are about to enter university or college in the last four years. Most people want to see their children succeed and have education, so there’s a lot of pressure.

GN:  How can students who can’t pay back their loans be helped?

This will help because OSAP—the Ontario Student Aid Program-  is still very much in place. Half of the students, around 155,000 are already on some form of student aid.

GN:  But my question was with reference to students who have graduated and started working in jobs. If they lose the job or are laid off midway and can’t pay back the loan, is there a way you can help them?

Yes, there is an interest forgiveness program; so students can get forgiveness if they are unemployed, and we provide different types of assistance to those who are unemployed. We don’t charge them until they are working; other students can get reductions in their interests and reduce payments by working in the not-for-profit sector.

GN:  Liberals also committed to opening a new college campus in high-growth areas. Two of these areas are Milton and Brampton. How soon can we expect to hear about this?

The high-growth areas are in Toronto and in the 905, and in suburbs like Brampton, Markham and Mississauga. There’s a proposal being developed for Brampton..we’ve not picked a city for them. We are expecting to get proposals from a number of universities, for example from Brampton, Toronto, Hamilton. All of those proposals will be evaluated. I would expect within the next five years the construction for those colleges to start.

GN:  Recently, there were some stories about colleges giving out fake degrees. The South Asian community is a little more vulnerable when it comes to these kinds of scams. How do you think the community can protect itself from these fraudsters?

People have to understand that if you have a post-secondary education in a public college or universities, you’ve got about no chances of getting into fraud. So this only applies to a small number of private colleges…these are run as private businesses; they charge whatever they want. During the first six months of the past year, we took over a hundred legal actions against private colleges that were not playing by the rules, colleges that would enroll students into the college but has gone bankrupt before the students finished the course they were in. There’s an inspection branch within the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities that does inspect colleges and make sure the colleges are properly regulated and certified.

I would advise people against purchasing an education at a college where the college isn’t regulated and reviewed by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Newspapers like your own can be very helpful in that. Because we’re trying to get that kind of information out so interviews like this are very helpful.

GN:  The government also committed to giving $40,000 a year scholarships to international students. What has been the reception to this program been like?

This is for graduate students and international students, particularly from countries like China and India. We have an increasing demand for students in the PhD programs. It is very much in the interest of Canadians that we are able to attract some of the best and the brightest in the world. So you can get these $40,000 scholarships—a small number of them—if you are an elite PhD student in India, China or another country, who would like to complete their graduate education in Ontario. These are people who come to Canada not looking for a job, but often creating them. So whatever field they are in, they often would choose to stay in Canada, be researchers and help build the Canadian economy.

Having said that, we have about half a billion dollar in student aids and scholarships given to Ontario resident students. This (the international scholarship) is about a $30 million program—an important program, but a very modest program.

GN:  Is the government still committed to giving these scholarships in spite of tough economic times ahead in Ontario?

Absolutely. As a matter of fact, even more committed. Maybe I can give you one example of why this is important. When I was the Mayor of Manitoba, Winnipeg, one of the things we did was to attract the foremost cardiovascular researcher in the world. He came from India and his name is Naranjan Dhalla. Once he established himself in Winnipeg, he attracted 360 young PhD students in cardiovascular research. Winnipeg, which is a relatively small city, compared to some of the major research centres is one of the world’s most well-known cardiovascular research centres in the world. Because one man named Dr. Naranjan Dhalla decided to relocate his family from India to Winnipeg and build a research community around him that’s not small at all. So when you get elite researchers come and complete their education here and start doing globally significant research, you create new businesses, new jobs around them. You also make Toronto or Kitchener or Hamilton or London a global centre for research.

GN:  Our Premier is often called the Education Premier. What more can we expect from the McGuinty government with regards to post-secondary education?

We know that will give those children much better chance at success in life and improve their living skills right through to a major expansion of graduate programs and advanced learning…We are also looking at online learning, to developing the online campuses so students are able to do more, sitting at their computers or home or when they are working part time. We call it hybrid education, in which they do part of the education in the classroom and part of it online. This is likely to be a large part of the expansion of the college and university system—making learning more affordable and much easier for students to acquire their degree and get the education they need.

By Bhaswati Ghosh

Elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2011 election as a member of the Conservative Party, MP Corneliu Chisu represents the electoral district of Pickering-Scarborough East. Trained as an engineer, MP Chisu retired as a Major from the Canadian Forces. He is fluent in English, Italian, Romanian and Hungarian and possesses a working knowledge of French, Russian and German. Generation Next recently spoke to the MP on a range of issues.

As a publication focusing on the concerns of the South Asian community, we are interested to know what are some of the major issues faced by immigrants—who form a substantial part of Mr. Chisu’s riding.

Going by the requests received by his constituency office, primarily, the concerns facing immigrants is exactly that—immigration issues, such as family sponsorship and visa application requests. The other concerns are jobs and old-age pensions. The MP concedes that these issues require an intense degree of attention to handle.

In response to how he plans to tackle the high rate of unemployment, while the MP admits that in the present scenario any amount of job cuts is too many, he mentions the introduction of job bills, including the recent Bill C-13, also known as Keeping Canada’s Economy and Jobs Growing Act. Additionally, he mentions, the Conservative government has created more than 600,000 net new jobs since July 2009.

Generation Next wants to know the MP’s reaction to the federal government’s latest policies regarding Super Visas for parents and grandparents, as well as the non-acceptance of new PR applications. Won’t these steps make it tougher for new immigrants to bring their families to Canada?

As can be expected of him as a Conservative Party, MP Chisu defends the temporary hold on PR applications. He feels this can help better serve those currently waiting to have their applications processed. “We are dealing with a massive backlog of applications and as I am sure many are aware the wait times on the process are astronomical. Currently it is not fair for applicants to have such a long wait, applications should be processed efficiently and quickly,” he says. He also endorses the idea of Super Visas as in his view, “instead of waiting for eight years, a parent or a grandparent can come to Canada within eight weeks.”

As for new immigrants coming to Canada, MP Chisu feels respect and acceptance are possibly the two most vital traits for a new family or individual landing in this country. He also says “Being Canadian is a value set that works in tandem with any other ethnic and cultural bonds one may have.” He has high praise for South Asian immigrants. “Most of the immigrants from South Asia are highly educated,” he says and adds, “I personally know many engineers, being a professional engineer myself, with excellent skills who work in my riding at the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant.”

Commenting on the issue of immigration frauds, MP Chisu draws attention to initiatives taken by the Canadian government, specifically to put a check on fraudulence in immigration. This includes the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council (ICCRC), a council that is in charge of cracking down on crooked immigration consultants.

Responding to the issue of a perceptible lack of the representation of visible minorities in prominent positions, the MP thinks that “their (visible minorities’) success minorities consists first in education and their participation in wide range of community activities.”

MP Chisu talks with satisfaction about the involvement of the South Asian community in Canada’s political process. He encourages one to just look at the recently-elected Canadian Parliament to gauge the community’s political participation. “On the Government side of the Parliament for example we have a number of great politicians such as Parm Gill, Nina Grewal, Joe Daniel, Devinder Shory, Deepak Obhrai. Our cabinet also contains South Asian background Ministers such as, Bal Gosal and Tim Uppal.” This, he points out, is only one level of government. On the whole, he feels enthused about the growing interest of South Asians in the political process, thereby becoming “a powerful force in elections on all levels of government.”

Looking ahead, what can Corneliu Chisu’s riding members expect from him? The MP hopes to increase his presence both in the riding and in Ottawa. “I plan to hold two Town Hall meetings a month in the riding, to better connect with my constituents, hear their issues and listen to their opinions. I will, time permitting, be involved in as many community activities as possible,” he says. In Ottawa, the MP plans to be more active in the legislature to represent his constituents and all Canadians.

Growing up in a small Canadian city, my parents did everything they could to keep me and my siblings connected to our language, faith, culture and history. For example, they enforced a “Punjabi-only rule” in our house (mostly to accommodate my elderly grandmother so she wouldn’t feel so alienated when we jabbered away in English).

Bedtime was a chance to hear stories of old Punjabi heroes. Sometimes the stories had a happy ending – sometimes they didn’t.

Here’s one story that has stuck with me over the years:

On May 23, 1914, a Japanese ship called the Komagata Maru carrying 376 passengers from colonial India tried to dock in a Vancouver port. It was denied because of racist legislation called the “Continuous Journey” law, put in place by Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden. From 1908 to 1948, the law required ships to make one continuous, uninterrupted passage to Canada for eligibility to dock and for passengers to disembark. However, that was virtually impossible as ships could not make a continuous journey from any South Asian country without stopping at least once to refuel and restock supplies before reaching Canada.

For two months, the Komagata Maru anchored offshore while Canadian authorities drove the passengers to the brink of starvation and desperation. Finally, Prime Minister Borden intervened by calling on the Canadian Navy and local militia and prepared for violent confrontation. In the end, no conflict occurred but the ship was forced to return to India on July 23 with fuel and restocked supplies.

When the ship returned to India, 19 of the passengers were immediately killed by the ruling British government. Others were charged with treason, imprisoned and had their properties expropriated.

It’s a tragic story with an unhappy ending.

However, Canadian politicians are trying to address this historical wrong that has passed unrecognized for too long.

In January 2007, then-NDP Leader Jack Layton demanded that the Government of Canada officially apologize to the community. In his address, Mr. Layton said “one of our greatest strengths as Canadians is our ability to face the past and learn from it. This is the time to exercise that strength.”

In addition to the apology, the NDP had suggested a permanent memorial be created as a reminder of the tremendous hurdles members of the South Asian community have had to overcome, and to celebrate their invaluable contributions to Canadian society.

The motion was put forward in Parliament on May 18, 2007, and required unanimous consent by all parties. Sadly, it was blocked by Conservative MPs. Personally, I was disappointing to see the Conservatives deny justice to the community.

The Conservatives have proven they have a heart when it comes to saying sorry inside Parliament to communities such as the First Nations, Metis and Inuit regarding the decades of residential school abuse, and to the Chinese because of the head tax and the Japanese over their unjust internment. Now it’s time to apologize in the House of Commons to the Sikh, Hindu and Muslim communities who suffered from the Komagata Maru tragedy.

This apology is an opportunity for the government to correct this historical injustice and offer a chance for healing and reconciliation. This is an opportunity to create awareness so that this kind of tragedy never happens again. For the past 97 years, the Komagata Maru has been an unhealed scar in the community and in Canadian history.

Here is a chance to make the Komagata Maru story have a happy ending.

Maybe I should teach Mr. Harper how to say “I’m sorry” in Punjabi.

Rupinder Kaur is the Press Secretary to Ontario’s New Democrats.

Prime Minister of Canada Mr. Stephen Harper had been generous enough to make time in his busy schedule to meet a few members of multicultural media. He was joined by four of his newly elected Conservative colleagues: MP John Carmichael (Don Valley West), MP Kyle Seeback (Brampton West), MP Wladyslaw Lizon (Mississauga East-Cooksville) and MP Chungsen Leung (Willowdale).

In his opening remarks, Prime Minister Harper was pleased with Conservatives’ win in the GTA.

“..one of our objectives of course had been to improve our standing in the GTA generally, in the 905 in particular, and we had a few hopes in the 416..we won every seat except one [in 905], and in the 416, we won the most seats of any party. So we now have excellent representatives in just about every part of the greater Toronto region,” he said.

Disappointed by the recent jobless numbers in Canada, Mr. Harper stated “the government’s number one priority remains the economy and jobs I think you all know we’ve had a disappointing jobs report today [Dec 2], and numbers are down a little bit. I mean, I never like when they’re down at all, because obviously when there’s more job losses than gains, that means there are families who don’t have employment, and that is of deep concern to us. The report was mixed, however…”

Immigration, the Prime Minister said, is also one of the key focuses of the Canadian government.

“We obviously have other things we’re focused on as well. Obviously areas of immigration, I know, are important to many of your readers and viewers and listeners, and that continues to be an area we’re also focused on..this is the first government, I say, this is the first government ever, I think, to not cut immigration during a recession, because we believe strongly that if you look at our labour force needs, even in the immediate future, not the long-term, the immediate future, immigration remains very critical to the success of the Canadian economies, been part of that success through the recession, and will continue to be.”

Acknowledging the significance of multicultural media, Mr. Harper said “We understand that while the so-called mainstream media refers to you as the ethnic or cultural media, in fact, we understand that in many cases you have far more viewers, listeners and readers than the so-called mainstream media, and often it’s the case that your viewers, listeners and readers actually pay a lot more attention to what you say and report. So it is important as we communicate with them, particularly here in the Greater Toronto Area, that we keep in touch with you.”

Responding to Generation Next’s question that “increasingly we hear that the federal government hasn’t been fair to Ontario, especially in terms of settlement funding, in terms of the ridings that were supposed to be created, so how do you reassure our readers that.. your government is indeed fair and doing the right thing?” Prime Minister responded “I do congratulate Mr. McGuinty on his re-election, but I would note that our success in the GTA and elsewhere has been much stronger in Ontario…On the issue of redistribution, actually, the government of Ontario has backed the government of Canada’s plan. We’re very pleased to have the support. Ontario will get half of the new seats in the redistribution that’s going to take place beginning in the New Year, and should receive an even greater share under the formula going forward. So this is a major step forward in terms of addressing a longstanding concern of the Government of Ontario, and Premier McGuinty’s been very good about supporting the federal government on that. He has explicitly not supported the federal Liberal Party’s position, and he is, of course, all of us have been even more critical of the NDP’s position. The NDP’s position is quite extraordinary. Their proposal that they placed before the House of Commons, would actually ensure that the number of seats in Quebec rises quicker than any other province. They would guarantee Quebec a fixed percentage of seats in the House of Commons, regardless of its population. That is not only unfair to the other provinces; our belief, based on legal advice, is it’s completely unconstitutional.”

As far as the federal cuts to settlement funding in Ontario go, Mr. Harper said “..there’s two issues here. I think first of all, the big picture is the following. The Government of Canada, under our government, since we took office, has tripled the overall level of immigrant settlement funding in this country. Settlement funding in Ontario and everywhere else is much higher than it was six years ago. What has happened [in] the last couple of years is that the distribution of those monies has gone more to other provinces than to Ontario, and the reason’s very simple. In the last few years, the percentage of immigrants going to Ontario is lower than it used to be. And so we’re distributing the money on a per capita basis between the provinces. But Ontario will continue to get its fair share.”

Prime Minister Harper also pointed out that his government “has really turned a new page in terms of relations with India. We signed a nuclear cooperation agreement, something that had been held up for 30-some years. We’ve had a series of successful visits between Prime Minister Singh and myself to each other’s countries, and we have launched free trade negotiations with India..”

By Asma Amanat

As of December 1^st, 2012, parents and grandparents can apply for a ten year multiple entry super visa to visit their family in Canada.

In a recent teleconference, Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism answered questions on Super Visas for parents and grandparents. He said it was mandatory for immigrants wishing to invite their parents through super visa to fulfill minimum income requirements in Canada. “This is to ensure that Canadian tax payers don’t end up having to support visiting relatives through our welfare and other generous social benefits,” he said. According to the Minister, failing to meet the minimum income requirement, if coupled with the fact that the parents’ or grandparents’ links to their home country is weak, can lead to a denial of visa.

Responding to a question from Generation Next on the issue of work permits and health insurance for parents and grandparents, the Minister said, the primary objective of issuing of the super visa was for the parents and grandparents is to visit and not work in Canada. He said, “Parents and grandparents can apply for a work permit in Canada. The employer would have to obtain a labour market opinion to demonstrate that the job has been first offered to a Canadian—citizen or resident or that no Canadian has applied for the position. In such instances, we would issue a work permit. But it’s not our intention to automatically issue work permits to visiting parents and grandparents.”

He drew attention to the already “far-stretched” healthcare system in Canada, evidenced by the long wait times and said it wouldn’t be fair to have visitors’ health costs covered by Canadian tax-payers’ money.

There are significant concerns in the Tamil and the Muslim communities of South Asian origin with regards to these super visas. While the federal government has undertaken extensive exercise to ensure that immigrant communities are aware of why the government has stopped accepting parental and grandparental permanent resident applications, however misconceptions exist.

This week the humanitarian crisis in Attawapiskat has become a big national and international media story, forcing Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to act. Unfortunately, the first thing that Stephen Harper did was not offer assistance, but tried to blame others for the problem.

Can you spot a disaster if you see one? If the indications include an international aid agency handing out food, blankets, clothing and providing first aid, that’s a pretty good sign you’re seeing a disaster.

This past week the Canadian Red Cross was on the Attawapiskat First Nations reserve, helping residents prepare for an early winter, where they currently living without adequate housing, heating or even running water.

Attawapiskat is a First Nation community located in central northern Ontario. Between 1,200 and 2,000 people live in very difficult conditions in this remote community. Many of the homes and public buildings in Attawapiskat are decades old and decaying, such as the local school which still sits on the site of an old 30,000 litre diesel fuel spill. The deplorable situation at that school was the momentum behind the successful “Shannen’s Dream” project, which effectively shamed Stephen Harper’s Conservatives into committing to build a new school by 2013. Attawapiskat is a community in need of not just government assistance, but also a plan to end its decade’s long slide into despair.

There is no doubt that the current disaster in Attawapiskat is a result of negligence on the part of the federal government. As of writing this there are approximately 122 families living in condemned housing and 96 people are living in a large portable trailer. Many of the “homes” are without clean water, basic sanitation, or sources of reliable heat. As is the case in many struggling communities in Canada, housing investment has not kept up with population growth and many children are now sleeping on floors in Attawapiskat’s condemned homes, or on the ground in tents. To make matters worse, winter came early in Attawapiskat where temperatures have already dipped to -30 degrees Celsius and there is two feet of snow on the ground. When the Red Cross arrived in the community, they quickly determined it met the definition of a “disaster area” by their standards.

This week the humanitarian crisis in Attawapiskat has become a big national and international media story, forcing Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to act. Unfortunately, the first thing that Stephen Harper did was not offer assistance, but tried to blame others for the problem.

Rather than saying help is on the way, Mr. Harper tried to blame the leadership in the community, claiming that there shouldn’t be a crisis because it had received $92 million in federal money since 2006.

So why is there a housing crisis?  In short, families and children are still homeless in Attawapiskat because Stephen Harper simply wrote the community a cheque and tried to walk away from the problem. No one from the federal government bothered to see if the money was enough to build the homes and schools, or meet the water and sanitation requirements of the community. While dishing out the blame and placing the community under ‘Third Party Management,’ Mr. Harper has still offered no concrete assistance in response to this made-in-Canada disaster.

I’m left asking myself why are people in Canada living in Third World conditions? I’m proud of my New Democrat team of MPs for consistently raising this issue over the years and putting a giant spotlight on the situation. Even NDP Leader Nycole Turmel visited the people of Attawapiskat and is working towards solutions. That’s what political leaders do in a state of emergency, that’s Canadian leadership. Stephen Harper would rather stay in Ottawa and blame Attawapiskat families for the crisis.

Who would have imagined that in the best country in the world, Canadian citizens would have to rely on the Red Cross because their own government refuses to act?

Rupinder Kaur is the press secretary for New Democratic Party of Canada.

“We talked about democracy but we didn’t practice it in our own party.”

“We didn’t respond, we basically took the high road and he (PM Harper]  was very successful in ensuring that the people who did not like Conservatives would not vote Liberal and so in a sense, Mr. Harper delivered the official opposition to the NDP.”

The Liberal Party of Canada is attempting to rebuild itself after historic defeat in May 2011’s federal elections. This rebuilding process has attracted many quieter Liberal voices to be at forefront. One of those voices is Sheila Copps.

In public domain for over 35 years, Ms. Copps had served as a Deputy Prime Minister and at senior Cabinet positions. She has put her name forth as the candidate for President of Liberal Party of Canada.

In her opinion, there were several reasons for Liberals’ great loss in May 2011’s elections. The foremost among them is lack of open nomination and appointment system that favoured a few and isolated many Liberal supporters and volunteers.

“If we cut down on open nominations and replacement appointments,” we can enhance the number of volunteers and build strong support base,” stated Ms. Copps in an interview with Generation Next.

As a candidate running for the Presidency of Liberal Party of Canada, Ms. Copps objective is to open up the party to democratic process, expanding the vote to internet users, to find volunteers in ridings from where Liberal Party has been wiped out.

“Right now if you go on the Liberal website, you cannot get a membership off the website, on a PDF from which is crazy. So we need to modernize and stop running a 20^th century party and run a 21^st century,” she laments.

At the same time, she blames Prime Minister Stephen Harper for spending $10 million on trashing then Liberal leader Micheal Ignatieff. She also appears to be furious that the Liberal party did not respond in the same manner.

“We didn’t respond, we basically took the high road and he (PM Harper]  was very successful in ensuring that the people who did not like Conservatives would not vote Liberal and so in a sense, Mr. Harper delivered the official opposition to the NDP,” she stated.

But don’t all political parties do the same. One can argue that unions did this for Ontario Liberals just before the October 6^th election?

“The PC leader had trashed Dalton McGuinty and the Working Families which is a coalition of teachers, nurses, and construction workers did some ads. Historically, no political party has ever advertised between elections. So, [for Conservatives] to carry on a multi-million dollar negative campaign between elections, is unheard of,” retorts former Hamilton MP.

No one understands the consequences of attack ads more than Liberals do. Ms. Copps says

“When I campaigned..I heard people in quite a few ridings..repeating verbatim what was in the ad about Michael Ignatieff. For example, he studied in other parts of the world, well that should actually be an asset; it shows that he’s got a world vision. Instead that turned into a negative because he studied at Cambridge and Harvard, it’s pretty bizarre,” she recalls.

Another reason many people believe Liberals lost so badly was that they had taken their voter base for granted. The impression resonated strongly in immigrants communities especially in the South Asian community of the GTA. While Ms. Copps agree that it was indeed the case, she also suggests Mr. Harper’s clever ploys behind the Liberal loss.

“We talked about democracy but we didn’t practice it in our own party,” she stated regretfully.

And she is confident that Liberals are ready to rebuild their volunteer base up from 19 per cent earlier this year.

Among many other things, the candidate for Liberal Party Presidency believes that Liberals need to revisit the message of inclusion, economic opportunities in Canada and discrimination against immigrants in wages and so on.

Have Conservatives done so?

“I don’t think they’ve addressed it all..I mean they had a strategy of economic growth that involved putting in the infrastructure but not brain power. It’s kind of the way they tackled crime, saying they’re going to get tough on crime but in the meantime they’re going to spend millions of dollars on jails, imprisoning people that really shouldn’t be in jail..they’ve [Conservatives] very successful in driving those issues into the trajectory,” she responded.

Ms. Copps cries foul over Tories strategies whereby the Parliamentary Secretary and the Prime Minister wrote a letter to some school boards suggesting that Justin Trudeau should not be allowed into the Catholic school system because he’s not a good Catholic. And so the idea that they’re already trying to trash people that are future leaders, is in the window, even though we’re supposed to have a country that respects the separation of church and state.

As a Liberal, Ms. Copps is firmly against Liberal-NDP coalition, disregarding the idea as one of Mr. Harper’s manoeuvres to wipe off the Liberal Party of Canada.

“The Liberal party is quite different party from the NDP and I think that Mr. Harper wants the Liberals to join the NDP. Why? Because Mr. Harper knows that in a fight between the left and the right in Canada, the right will always win because Canadians generally are Conservative people so they’re not going with the left wing alternative, but they do go with the alternative that provides discourse on responsibility. We’re the ones that got the country’s finances in order, fiscal responsibility and socially progressive ideas,” she says.

As a former Minister of Canadian Heritage, Ms. Copps touts her record for introducing diversity in various board appointments.

“When I was Minister responsible for Canadian heritage, 50% of my appointments were women and minorities. So it’s one thing to talk about, it’s another thing to do something about it. I brought in the International Instrument on Cultural Diversity which protects cultural diversity within their own realm, and I also made a specific effort to reach out in governing council appointments and ensure we reflected the totality of Canada. I issued a directive to the CBC in 1999 telling them that if they wanted to get their television license renewed, they would have to get minority reporters and people working in the broadcast field..it’s not an accident that you have many more diverse faces than in other countries because if the company wants to get a license, they have to table an action plan explaining how they are reflecting the diversity of Canada in their employment stream, and I issued that directive,” she notes.

While Ms. Copps says that Liberal Party will be opening up, many former Liberal supporters and campaigners are desperately seeking any distant friends affiliated with Conservatives to join the Tory force. Unless those at the helm of Liberal Party’s affairs do some major renovation work within the Liberal Party, it’s not hard to conclude that for the next few election terms, it may remain distant third, irrelevant to lives of people.

Also, in the months after the May elections, while Conservatives remain up for a battle, like former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, interim Liberal leader Bob Rae has hardly ever tried to touch base with multicultural media.