What transpired at that committee was disheartening and outrageous.

Conservative MPs decided to obstruct the committee from conducting its job. They denied witnesses who were there at committee from sharing their experience or professional opinion. Instead, they hogged the microphone and spoke meaninglessly until the clock ran out. For two hours. Witnesses who travelled to Ottawa to inform Canadians and Parliamentarians were shut out completely. Bob Dechert, a Conservative MP who was at the meeting admitted that their deliberate plan was to exclude Canadians from speaking before the committee. Mr. Dechert explains the logic (if you want to call it logic) behind why he didn’t want to give Canadians the opportunity to speak: “They want to have the media attention to talk about how they were handled by the police…” Aaron Wherry, a MacLean’s magazine political reporter mocks Mr. Dechert here and his shocking explanation.

In response to that outrageous statement, I wrote a letter to the local paper, the Mississauga News which got published today. Here it is:

“Dear Editor:

(Mississauga-Erindale) MP Bob Dechert has demonstrated unimaginable arrogance by bragging about his role in denying Canadians the opportunity to speak in front of a parliamentary committee.

Mr. Dechert and his Conservative colleagues blocked credible voices such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association from speaking in the House of Commons. Why?

According to Mr. Dechert, “They want to have the media attention to talk about how they were handled by the police.” I guess he believes he is the only one entitled to “media attention.”

I’ve heard of such restrictions in countries that are not known for their democratic values, but to see it happen in Canada is truly sad.

Arrogance and disregard of public interest will be the downfall of the Conservatives in the next election. Until then, we need to let them know that such behaviour is unacceptable.”

As someone who was born outside of Canada, I have a unique appreciation for what it offers me and my fellow citizens. Many countries around the world deny rights and privileges that we consider basic here in Canada. Governments and their officials are meant to serve their citizens not the other way around.

There are countries where state police agents have a blank cheque to intimidate citizens and trample all over their rights. Places where economic and social opportunities are tied proportionally to who you know instead of merit and abilities.

I have lived in countries where dissent is equated to treason. I have seen governments infringe on the rights of citizens under the guise of security. I have observed governments equating tightening their grip on power with security for their citizens. I grew up hearing that providing minorities their full rights is tantamount to a threat to national unity and mainstream culture.

Such unjust and cruel norms that may be common in other countries are completely rejected in Canada where we have rules that are setup to protect against similar transgressions.

Not only do Canada and Canadian institutions outlaw similar practices but we are frequently reminded to remain sensitive against coming close to crossing such boundaries.

Examining these stark differences between Canada and other countries fills me with pride and confidence. Canada’s fundamental respect for its citizens and their rights are values that we must celebrate and protect passionately.

We also need to refrain from feeling smug or start taking these privileges we have for granted. Canada didn’t achieve what it achieved without sacrifice and vigilance. It didn’t happen easily.

We cannot afford to be complacent otherwise we will squander away our good fortunes and leave our country to future generations in worse shape than the one we inherited.

Think about it. Have you ever imagined that in Canada people and/or organizations would be punished for disagreeing with their government and that some organizations would lose their funding because they were critical of government’s policies? Have you ever imagined that the Prime Minister would shut down Parliament arbitrarily twice within one year denying Parliamentarian the ability to hold him accountable? Have you ever imagined that in Canada one’s citizenship would be questioned if they were born or worked abroad? Have you ever imagined that thoughtful and rational debates about the Middle East would be suppressed in Canada? Have you ever imagined that if people would question our policy in Afghanistan they would be accused of being Taliban sympathizers? Have you ever imagined seeing Canada’s largest city locked down with chain-linked fences and overwhelming presence of armed police officers?

Those developments may have appeared farfetched and unbelievable few years ago, but today they are Canadian reality. We all should be concerned with the direction that our country is moving towards.

I am afraid that we are sleepwalking backwards, and if we don’t stop this slide, one day we will wake up wondering how we got to that point.

It is on the occasion of Canada Day that we need to assess the direction that our country has embarked on and decide if it is in sync with our vision and expectations.

Canadians have deep attachment to our values and institutions. We need to recognize that it is our individual duty to protect and nurture them. Those values and institutions have offered Canadians the opportunity to pursue their aspirations convinced that they will be justly rewarded.

For me personally, Canada has allowed me to dream beyond what I would have ever dared of dreaming on my own. It is my appreciation for Canada that drives my ambition to see Canada do even better.

Canada did not become one of the best countries in the world by accident. It was the result of the hard work of its citizens.

It is now the responsibility of today’s citizens to decide if they support the direction our country is moving towards or if they don’t. Do we care enough to get involved to ensure that our voices are heard?

Happy Canada Day!

MISSISSAUGA – Omar Alghabra and Liberal Party Finance Critic John McCallum stood up for the middle class and decried the Conservative Party’s wasteful spending Thursday at a Mississauga-Erindale town hall meeting.

“Here in Mississauga, we’ve seen unemployment above the national average – more than 9.5 per cent at the end of last year,” said Alghabra. “In addition to high unemployment, the average Canadian family now owes almost $1.50 for every single dollar of disposable income. This is unacceptable, yet the Conservative Party continues to make life harder for the middle class.”

McCallum visited Mississauga specifically to speak at the event and answer questions from approximately one hundred attendees.

He expressed opposition to the Harper government’s unprecedented levels of annual deficits accompanied by corporate tax cuts that will add another $6 billion dollars to the deficit. By 2015, the Harper government is adding more than $150 billion to the national debt.

“We are at a crossroads,” said McCallum. “The Conservatives want more corporate taxes and a fend-for-yourself Canada, and we want to support people to relieve the anxiety of middle-class Canadians.”
McCallum said the Liberal Party of Canada wants to freeze corporate taxes and direct the savings to supports for the struggling middle-class.

He also reiterated Michael Ignatieff’s commitment to post-secondary education. “If you get the grades, you get to go.”

Investing in post-secondary education will help to produce a more innovative and skilled workforce, and improving financial support for families and the elderly will allow the middle-class to retire their debt sooner.
McCallum also used the event to express his support for Alghabra’s candidacy in the next election. “Omar is badly missed in Ottawa, and we need him back.”

Most of the time was spent exchanging ideas with the audience. Questions covered a wide range of items, including G20 summit security costs, bank reforms and the next election platform.

For more information on Mississauga-Erindale Liberal candidate Omar Alghabra, or to learn of future events, visit www.omaralghabra.ca.

He is absolutely right!

The ultimate objective of any government should be the pursuit of improving the quality of life of its citizens. Undoubtedly, economic prosperity and success are essential for enhancing the quality of life but the goal should be to ensure that citizens have a decent quality of life.

It’s true that the quality of life and economic prosperity are co-dependent. You can’t improve quality of life without economic success and you won’t able to achieve economic gains if the quality of life of the labour force is poor. However, we should not confuse which is the eventual objective. It is the citizens’ well being.

That’s exactly why we as Canadians recognize the importance of our accessible healthcare, pension plan, maternity leave pay, children tax allowance, and public facilities like community centres to name a few examples. Those are initiatives that citizens expect their government(s) to maintain a standard of living. We want good education and good careers to maintain a certain standard of living. Everything we do as individuals or families is to improve our quality of life.

So when Stephen Harper says that it’s only the economy that matters and all other aspects of public policy are just noise, he is wrong. What about our aging population? Mounting household debt? Increasing healthcare costs? Retirement security? Integrating new immigrants? Protecting our environment? After all, our economic success depends on all of them.

While it’s crucial that governments promote policies that nurture economic success, let’s not forget why. The pursuit of enhancing the quality of life of our citizens must remain the ultimate objective.

The purpose of the workshop was demystify politics and breakdown the misconceptions about access to being able to participate in the political landscape. Most people, particularly youth, perceive politics to be a distant world disconnected from commons sense and the needs of people. It is considered exclusive to the connected few and impossible to influence.

That is why these type of sessions are extremely important. We discussed fundamentals and the simple basics of politics. How is the government structured? How are governments elected? How does our political system work? Such elements demonstrate how accessible and open the Canadian political system is. People are generally surprised when they learn how simple our system is and how easy to reach are the tools for making a difference in politics and by extension addressing the needs of Canadians.

Politics is nothing more than an instrument to advance the well being of citizens. At times, it gets dominated by what appears to be inconsequential bickering turning people off and increasing their cynicism. This unhealthy trend, if not confronted, will continue to erode our democracy and our citizen’s involvement in choosing their destiny.

Our country becomes better when more citizens get involved in politics. By getting involved, I don’t mean, every citizen has turn into an activist. It means that we start demolishing any barriers (real or perceived) that stand in the way of people believing in their political system. That also doesn’t mean that one has to believe that our system is flawless. In fact, our system needs many improvements. However, these improvements will not happen if new ideas coming from concerned citizens are not put forward with vigour and commitment.

Politics is not just about campaigns during elections and it’s not just about winning. Those are all means to an end. The objective is to advance the interests of Canadians and politics is just the marketplace of ideas where policies compete.

Hopefully last weekend’s session (this was our third in less than a year) will inform people and empower them. The ideas circulating within politics will get stagnant and rusty if more people care less about them. The irony is that the less engaged people are the more politicians will be able to get away with things.

Get involved for your sake, the sake of your family, your neighbourhood, your city, your province, your country and the world.

During their reign, the Conservatives have proven that they are incapable of thinking big and that they have a narrow understanding of what the role of the government is. Their focus for five years has been on short-term transactions that any care-taker could deliver instead of formulating major goals. They have preferred to set a low bar of expectation and offered little to capture the imagination of Canadians.

Canadians understand that their government isn’t able to fix all problems. They know that there is no such things as a magic wand that would eliminate difficulties overnight. They also don’t expect “entitlements” or giveaways.

What Canadians expect and deserve is a government that is able to articulate their aspirations and dreams and deliver on them. That the reason why citizens pay taxes. It is because there is a collective understanding that when we pool our resources together we are able to accomplish much more than if we acted individually. However, when the government chooses to abandon its responsibilities to address major issues, Canadians are bound to wonder if they are getting their value out of their government.

This budget, like the previous ones, neglected to tackle the major themes our country is facing. Issues such as healthcare, infrastructure, environment, governance, poverty, education, jobs of the future, pension reforms among many others appear to have been slighted by this budget. This budget is timid and I don’t mean that it’s small. It actually projects another $54 billion deficit after the $56 billion for this year.

For example, the infrastructure spending that is included in the stimulus package in this budget was dedicated to small refurbishment projects instead of aiming to build new and much needed modern infrastructure that our country needs.

This budget is a disappointment especially at a time when Canadians need their government the most. What is even more unfortunate is the fact that the Conservatives promised Canadians a “recalibrated” government agenda as an excuse for shutting down parliament for 3 months. It’s difficult to reconcile what this budget delivered with what the Conservatives claimed was needed for shutting down parliament.

Canadians are entitled to be severely disappointed with this budget. The Conservatives appear like a tired government that has run out of steam.

The dryness of this budget is making me thirsty for new ideas.

Canada, a country with a history of international humility and consensus building, had in the past tried to approach this file with sensitivity and maturity. Canada had maintained that peaceful resolution can be achieved through negotiations, application of international law and protection of civilian lives. Canada’s role may not have appeared to have immediate success but at least it earned domestic and international respect and helped prepare the ground for reconciliation.

The Stephen Harper government has deliberately thrown all of that away. The CBC’s Wendy Mesley did an excellent piece that outlined Mr. Harper’s blatant shift. This piece enumerated a list of steps taken by Stephen Harper illustrating a dramatic shift in traditional Canadian policy. Another example was in the summer of 2009 when the Harper government threatened an academic conference held at York University discussing the situation in that region. Also the Embassy Magazine revealed this summer a simmering tension between public servants and the Harper government over changing in language traditionally used by Foreign Affairs.

I have often spoken/written about the need for leaders to offer thoughtful ideas instead of playing the easy but damaging politics of division. The Middle East file particularly needs courageous leaders who can set parameters for a debate that no matter how passionate it gets there are common principles that can help us navigate through it. Here’s my attempt at identifying some of those principles:

• Canada has a moral and legal responsibility to promote peace and reconciliation not inflame tension and division
• Every human life is precious and must be protected
• We must never be afraid of engaging each other and others around the world in vigorous debates about this matter (or others). I am more afraid of the alternative to debate and dialogue
• Expressing disagreement with Israeli government conduct is not anti-Israeli just like disagreeing with the Harper government conduct is not anti-Canadian, or disagreeing with the Palestinian Authority conduct is not anti-Palestinian
• History must’ve taught us by now that military options offer no solutions and unless disagreements are confronted politically, logjams will persist
• This cannot be seen as a zero sum situation. Bob Rae always says “We can be pro-Israel, pro-Palestine and pro-peace at the same time”
• Canada cannot impose a solution but can offer our own talent and capacity to facilitate a fair solution
• As imperfect as it is, international law is a good reference for complicated matters
• Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live in peace and dignity like any human being

(These principles are applicable to other international conflicts)

Silencing debate or dissent is very harmful. The same would apply had we had a prime minister who attempts to silence criticism against the Palestinian Authority or any other government.

Stephen Harper has the right to change Canada’s policies as a prime minister and Canadians have the right to judge him for it. What is indefensible is Mr. Harper’s vicious attack on independent voices that also have a legitimate right to engage in such public policy debates.

Such intimidation techniques offer bad examples to Canadians and very little help to the desperate situation in Israel/Palestine and are also betrayals of Canadian values and norms.

This is a time to put aside partisanship and come together as one community that aspires to live in safety. In that spirit, I sent a letter to Bob Dechert expressing my relief that he, his staff or others in the building were not seriously hurt in the fire. I also offered my solidarity in the desire to finding the culprit and bringing him to justice.

We maybe political adversaries but in difficult times, we need to set an example as Canadians and Mississaugans that we stand together in the face of criminal and reckless behaviour.

One of the best examples for this trend is the Conservative’s party approach to the so called “ethnic” communities (as if some of us are without ethnicity). The media have been occasionally reporting on how active Jason Kenney, the minister of citizenship and immigration in reaching out to those communities. When following his activities, one cannot help but conclude that the Conservatives idea of seducing voters from multicultural backgrounds rests on one simple notion: Show up to their events, make some remarks opening with few words in their mother tongue, and voila! expect the audience and their families to automatically support you politically.

This over-simplification is frankly disturbing if not offensive.

Canadians are diverse culturally, economically, socially and politically. They deserve political leaders who demonstrate that they understand the depth and complexity of this diversity. That leaders are aware of the different needs and opportunities that face our country.

Multicultural communities share the same concerns with the rest of Canada. They want a growing economy, an accessible healthcare system, an affordable world class education, a sustainable environment, reduction in poverty, fairness in our society and judicial system and foreign policy that promotes peace and justice. In addition, they seek assurances for equal and full citizenship, respect and understanding for their faith and culture, safe space to practice their faith and culture, protection against stereotyping and discrimination, welcoming political leadership that would stand up for their equal rights and invite them to participate in society as full citizens.

Let’s examine the Conservatives’ record on the issue of multiculturalism:

Those are just examples of some visible practices. I can only imagine what is being done behind the curtains.

Democracy works when political leaders compete for serving the interests of Canadians. Attending celebratory events is important and useful, but it is not an end. Canadians deserve leaders who at their core understand our diversity and aspirations and demonstrate their understanding through policies.

To be fair, Conservatives don’t have a monopoly on having a simplistic and vacuous approach when dealing with multiculturalism or multicultural communities, but the Conservatives are unique in having a philosophical allergy to accepting the evolution of Canada as a truly multicultural society.

Ultimately, I suspect, Canadians from multicultural communities will support leaders who offer ideas for the broader issues. They will also support real policies that protect their rights and identities within our society.

Canada at 150: Rising to the Challenge is about the future.  It is a forward looking non-partisan policy conference taking place in Montreal from March 26-28, 2010. I’m inviting leading thinkers and doers from across Canada and around the world to grapple with what kind of country Canada can be, and should be, when we mark our 150th birthday in 2017.  And to answer the question of what needs to be done today and tomorrow to get there.

This website is your portal to a groundbreaking national conversation about our country’s future, a conversation that seeks new solutions to five challenges facing Canada in the years ahead:

Jobs today and tomorrow

The creative and competitive economy

Real life issues for Canadian families

Energy, environment, economy

A strong presence in the world of 2017

Through this website you can participate in this conversation, before and during the conference – no matter where you live in Canada.

Each week we’ll be publishing discussion papers, blog entries and Your2017 submissions on the website – posts that we invite you to discuss and debate in the comments forum below each article. As Liberal MPs hold Canada at 150 town halls across Canada in February and March, we’ll post event notices – so you can carry on the conversation in person.

On March 26 to 28, every Canadian will have access to the conference through live web stream.  You can watch – and ask questions – from your own computer or attend an event in your area. The Can150.ca website will help you find events near you where people are watching the conference together.  If you’d like to organize and host such an event, register it here on the website so others can join you.  

Canadians care deeply about our country. We need to harness this passion about our future if we are to solve the challenges facing Canadian families, individuals and both rural and urban communities. 

I hope you will add your voice to the conversation – and that you will invite your family, friends and constituents to do the same. That conversation begins here, right now.

Sincerely,
Michael Ignatieff

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world and its people have experienced much suffering over the years. This earthquake is testing their strength and courage.

As humans, fortunate to live in one of the richest countries in the world, we cannot stand by idly. The diversity of Canadians means that when any part of the world suffers, we feel their pain here in Canada. This is a call to action for all Canadians to extend a gesture of support and remind ourselves that we are brothers and sisters in humanity who come together in times of need.

I am asking you to please support the relief effort in Haiti by donating to one of the organizations listed below. The government is matching donations given to charitable organizations for relief efforts, which means that your giving power is now twice as strong.

Canadian Red Cross

Doctors Without Borders

Oxfam Canada

CARE Canada

The Humanitarian Coalition

World Vision Canada

Plan Canada

IDRF Canada

ICNA Relief Canada

My faith in humanity is strong and I am confident that the people of Haiti will triumph over this tragedy. Let’s be there for them and donate generously.

Michael Ignatieff is touring the country visiting different campuses, soliciting input and engagement from citizens. He will be visiting Mississauga this Wednesday where students and community members will get the opportunity to share their frustrations and aspirations.

These type of discussions with Canadians are very valuable. They are helpful for Canadians who may feel disconnected from the political process. They give an opportunity to familiarize Canadians with a human dimension that at times appears absent when talking about politics or politicians. Equally important, such forums will connect politicians to what everyday Canadians outside the political sphere care about.

Some argue that citizen participation in town-hall meetings like these will have very little effect on politicians and political decisions. They try to tap into the cynicism that exist in each of us by telling us that we can’t make a difference and that politicians don’t care.

The truth couldn’t be more different. Yes, there are politicians who may not care or who are motivated by self-interest, but ultimately Canadian citizens are the employer of all politicians. Whether they like it or not, politicians have to be sensitive to Canadians needs and concerns. The ones who are at odds with those needs are counting on traditional apathy towards politics that would let them get away with their unaccountable actions.

Genuine political leaders are the ones who are putting themselves on the line in open and uncensored forums, combating apathy and encouraging Canadians to claim their rightful place in the political process.

Democracy is messy and is a system where different ideas compete. Change doesn’t come easy, but if we abandon fulfilling our role, change will never come. We need leaders who encourage Canadians to participate, not ones who say Canadians don’t care.

Part of Michael Ignatieff listening tour, is the launch of a new website that asks Canadians to submit their ideas for the future of Canada. http://your2017.ca  is an opportunity for every Canadian to offer their input. I hope many Canadians will take few minutes to participate in this exercise and offer their valuable ideas.

In the meantime, I am looking forward to the session with Mr. Ignatieff at UTM on Wednesday. Hope to see you all there.