1. Free arithmetic with every debate
| Oct 05, 2015
There was a concluding mathematics lesson for all those who attended an
all-candidates’ meeting last Thursday night in the federal riding of Mississauga East-Cooksville.
“I have a humble request for everyone here tonight - do the math,” NDP candidate Ali Naqvi said at the conclusion of the
debate at Burnhamthorpe Library.
He pointed out that his party has 103 seats in Parliament and finished “a close second” in another 107 in 2011.
“The Liberals only have 33 seats because two of their MPs have been kicked out of caucus,” he said. “My opponent Peter
(Fonseca) is a great guy and a very decent person. But if you want to boot out the Conservatives, you have a progressive
choice in Thomas Mulcair and the NDP.”
Following Naqvi’s concluding remarks, Liberal Fonseca also turned to the bottom line to make his case.
Most polls have the Liberals at 48-50 per cent in the riding, with the Conservatives a close second, he said. “The polls have
the NDP at 15 per cent, maybe as high as 20 per cent in this riding. So if you’re really looking for change, vote for a
progressive Liberal government.”
The math that intrigued most in the audience of 130 at the Maja Prentice Theatre was the missing part of the equation. They
were wondering why only two of the three major party candidates put in an appearance at the event, co-sponsored by local
community advocacy group Mississauga Connects and the Vietnamese Canadian Voting and Advocacy Association.
Incumbent first-term MP Wladyslaw Lizon was invited, but neither confirmed nor denied that he would attend, moderator
Jonathan Giggs informed the audience at the beginning of the session.
Lizon did attend the all-candidates forum at Rogers Community Television but did not attend an earlier debate at
Burnhamthorpe Community Centre Sept. 19 sponsored by The Voice of Canadians.
A telephone message to his office seeking an explanation of his absence Thursday was not returned.
When a story surfaced earlier in the campaign that Conservative candidates were being discouraged from speaking to media
or attending local debates, Andrew McDougall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former direction of communications said the
candidates’ first job is to meet voters.
“Going to an all-candidates’ debate ... I think people romanticize the kind of democratic notion of that experience. But it’s also
a highly partisan experience where people pack the rooms and I don’t think Conservatives in particular think there are a lot of
‘persuadables’ there.”
Although Lizon’s absence was noted only in passing by his opponents during the debate, Naqvi said later that while Lizon’s
absence was not unexpected, it was unfortunate.
“It’s absurd,” he said. “It’s disrespectful of his constituents. It’s almost like the Conservatives are trying not to be accessible. I
think the people of Mississauga will make them accountable on election day.”
Fonseca said it was disappointing not to hear from all the candidates. “It sounds like the muzzling of candidates,” he said.
“That suggests a party that’s not secure with its message.”
Not all Tory candidates are taking the same approach. Bob Dechert, the incumbent in Mississauga-Erin Mills appeared last
week at a debate at UTM.
The two attendees Thursday sparred respectfully but forcefully during the discussion, each emphasizing the differences in
their approach to the handling of the economy, just as their leaders have done.
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2. Fonseca, the former MPP for the riding from 2003-2011, said his party’s stimulus plan - unlike the NDP’s - will provide
immediate relief for many Canadians who are suffering during a recession. “They want to balance the budget first, so all their
expensive plans will have to wait for two or three election cycles,” he said. “It’s reckless. We don’t have time to wait - too
many people are being left behind.”
Naqvi touted his party’s plans for a national pharmacare program, a $15 a day national child care program and reinvestment
in both the health care and manufacturing sections.
“One party is realistic,” he said. “For the other, everything comes from MasterCard. Adding another $125 billion of debt (over
10 years) is unreasonable. Canadians will be playing off debt for the next two decades. The child care program will be
provided when the NDP forms its first national government Oct. 19,” he said.
NOTES:
• Naqvi drew the biggest laugh of the night when he began his concluding remarks with another lesson, this one in
geography. “I’m sitting to the left of the other two parties and I’m closest to the Canadian flag.”
• the closest things got to personal occurred when the discussion turned to International Medical Graduates practicing in
Ontario, or rather, trying to get the right to practice. Fonseca spoke after Naqvi did on the subject. Fonseca firmly corrected
the figures Naqvi had given for IMGs waiting to be accepted in the province. Naqvi replied with an icy “thank you very much
for the correction” and then noted how Fonseca might have some familiarity with the subject since he was a Cabinet minister
under “the famous Dalton McGuinty.”
That prompted Fonseca to mention that, while in Cabinet, he worked closely with Naqvi’s brother Yasir, the Minister of
Community Safety and Correctional Services. “I think your brother is doing a stupendous job,” Fonseca needled.
“If you take that example, you will vote for the NDP,” replied Ali Naqvi, “because I taught almost everything to the younger
brother.”
In a later interview Naqvi noted that his brother, the former Ontario Labour minister who is nine years younger, probably
represents the most left of centre riding in the province, Ottawa Centre.
When the family came to Canada in 1988 and settled in Niagara, his father invited representatives of each of the parties to
come to pitch the family on their parties. “We were all political junkies,” says Naqvi. His father at first joined the Liberals,
becoming president of his local riding association. But he later left the Liberals, becoming a New Democrat and running three
times in Halton and Oakville. Ali, a lawyer, has run for the party previously in Don Valley West and Etobicoke North, although
he lives in Oakville. He now runs an immigration counselling service in west Etobicoke.
He says the party approached him to run in Mississauga East because most of the other 23 people they’d approached to run
said - “have you talked to Ali Naqvi?” Many people in the riding know him through his immigration work, he says, although
he’s never lived there.
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