No time for politics

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2008, Election 2008 Student articles

Laura Stone

He’s been in Canada for 20 years, and became a citizen in 1992, but Jose Campos can count the number of times he’s voted in federal elections on one hand.

 

“Why vote?” asks the man who’s cast two ballots in as many decades.

 

“We want a political party that will help us with our problems, but they look like they have their own, and they’re fighting for their own.”

 

Sitting in an immigrant resource centre on Argyle Ave. in Ottawa’s Centretown neighbourhood, Campos uses the free computer service to check his email and keep in touch with those back home in El Salvador.

 

He still speaks with a heavy Spanish accent and laments the state of finding a job in Canada without speaking perfect English, something many new Canadians ––  and even the no-so-new ones- struggle with on a daily basis.

 

It’s these realities of finding work, a home, getting education for themselves and their families, and adjusting to a different culture and climate, that occupy the lives of Canada’s immigrant population.

 

And some of them just don’t have time to bother with politics, says Mengistab Tsegaye, the program director of Lasi World Skills, which helps immigrants find jobs in the labour market.

 

“The first years they’re just getting settled, and they don’t even think about the political process,” says Tsegaye. “They have bigger challenges, just trying to settle and find employment, get their kids to school.”

 

It takes immigrants at least three years before they are eligible for citizenship, and in that time, finding work with the “two years of experience” cloud that hangs over most jobs is a major barrier.

 

Many organizations don’t specifically teach immigrants about the political process, although citizenship classes cover the basics. Ottawa’s Catholic Immigration Centre offers English classes, where the election may be covered in conversation. And Elections Canada has voting guides on its website in over 25 languages.

 

Yet the disillusionment many new Canadians face in their transplanted homes often translates into political apathy and henceforth, political under-representation.

 

“Whatever happens is not their views. They’re not represented” at the polls, says Tsegaye.

 

“Whatever has been decided, they are not being part of that decision. They don’t have a voice, for the most part.”

 

Some groups speak for them. The Ontario Council of Agencies Servicing Immigrants, for example, recently posted questions on its website asking the four major candidates their specific immigration policies and main issues- like employment- facing new Canadians.

 

It’s something they do for every election at every level, says Amy Casipullai, the program and policy coordinator for OCASI.

 

“Political parties rarely focus on issues facing immigrant communities,” she says.

 

“The opportunities for recent immigrants to actively get engaged themselves…has been difficult for a lot of immigrants, especially immigrants from racialized communities.”

 

Campos’s dilemma, like many, is work-related. He’s been back and forth between Canada and El Salvador in those 20 years, and his wife and 10-year-old daughter came to Canada to live with him only a month ago. In his native country, Campos, 42, worked as a bank manager, and here, he’s worked in administration. He’s currently looking for a job.

 

It’s not that Campos hasn’t heard of the candidates or their policies: he just can’t find anyone he likes.

 

“When you lost trust, it’s very difficult,” he says. “We don’t have any representative. They don’t want to help young families, that’s it.”

 

Campos says he doesn’t believe in the Canadian political system to make positive changes in his life. He, like many others, eschews the vote.

 

But that’s not true for everyone. There is a flip side, immigration groups say. Although there are many new Canadians who find it difficult to engage in politics, some immigrants are so impressed by the existence of an organized system that they do get involved in the process.

 

“There are some that are very active,” says Tsegaye. “Most immigrants come from countries where there’s no political process or democracy. So some of them get really, really excited and they participate.”

Laura Stone is a student in the Master of Journalism program at the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University.