Issue of transit, creating opportunities for youth

Issue of transit, creating opportunities for youth

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Louroz Mercader: For Councillor, Ward 7 Mississauga

By Maria Assaf

Mercader on campaign trail.

Louroz Mercader is a promising candidate for Councillor of Ward 7 in Mississauga. I met with him at his office in Cooksville, the neighbourhood where he grew up and where he is now running. Surrounded by his young niece, his father and mother, who give their everything to his campaign, and some of his friends as volunteers, his office had the feeling of a home. Despite his youth, the 31-year-old has been directing the Mississauga Youth Games for 9 years, a program he created in light of the lack of a community centre in his ward. He also sat at the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Committee (MYAC) since he was 13, on the GO Transit customer service advisory board for six years and on the board for the United Way in Peel region. The native of Manila moved to Canada at the age of six. I spoke to him while he was planning a canvassing trip to a nearby neighbourhood.

TPR: What is your educational background?

MERCADER: I went to Humber College for public relations and I’m currently finishing at Ryerson University for public administration. I was really fortunate because when I was in college, I actually got a job working for the local Member of Provincial Parliament, Peter Fonseca. So I got to actually work in the ministries of health and health promotion. This was between 2004 and 2006.

TPR: How did you get involved in politics?

MERCADER: In Grade 8 , Hazel McCallion came to my school. She was the main speaker for career day. When she spoke, that’s when I knew I wanted to become the Mayor of Mississauga one day. I always knew I was interested in politics, but that’s when I knew that you could become a politician as a future career.

Mercader with family and a friend.
(2 PHOTOS: MARIA ASSAF)

TPR: What kind of work have you done in politics?

At the MYAC, we were fighting things such as transit, making sure that the fares were low for students and getting better service for students to get to school and late at night. We also tackled things such as safety and crime in the neighbourhood and in schools. I think the number one issue back then was transit. Mississauga is still the only city that has a student fare for college and university students. We fought really hard to preserve that. Every time that City Council wanted to raise the fares, we were always at the meetings saying that you can’t do this. They always backed down. They always listened to us.

TPR: What is the first thing you would do as Councillor?

MERCADER: Cooksville has the highest transit usage outside of Toronto. But the trains on the Milton line only run during rush hour. If you don’t catch the train between 6:30 and 8:30 a.m., then you have to take the Go bus. It’s limited. One of the first things I would do is get the City of Mississauga to work together with the City of Toronto and the Town of Milton to lobby the provincial government to buy the Milton line and make it public. Then we can control when the trains can come. That’s the number one issue for this area.

TPR: What are the biggest issues affecting the Filipino community in your ward? And what would you do to fix these problems if you get elected?

MERCADER: We have a high unemployment rate. We have a big high school dropout rate for young Filipinos. We are lacking role models and spokespeople to really speak on our behalf for big issues. We lack mentorship. I am advocating for big brother and big sister programs, so that we can have young Filipino professionals taking on the next generation. Also, having elected officials like myself in government will help direct some of the funding that could be coming out, some of the programming that could actually help these young people and actually create opportunities for Filipino Canadians.

TPR: How would you use your experience working in politics in order to accomplish this?

MERCADER: Up until I ran for Councillor, I was working with Civic Action with John Tory and my job was to create a youth employment strategy for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas. So I created a report called Escalator and we analyzed what groups of young people are falling behind in the work force. Filipinos made it in the top 10. The biggest barriers to actually entering the work force is the lack of networks in different fields. One of the goals is to make sure that a Filipino becomes the CEO of one of the hospitals in this province. But somebody needs to pave the way for that. So they need mentors to help them work through the system so they actually become successful one day.