NOTEBOOK: Why we still can’t make it

NOTEBOOK: Why we still can’t make it

Filipinos fail to gain foothold in municipal elections

With all the excitement over the big number of Filipino-Canadian candidates in the recent municipal elections in Toronto and the GTA, come now the almost bitter disappointment over the losses and the hindsight expectation that these candidates could not win and did not expect to win at all in the first place.

Except for the veterans, Councillors Alex Chiu of Markham and Art Viola, former Lord Mayor of Niagara-on-the-Lake, and two trustee candidates, Marlene Mogado of Markham and Luz del Rosario of Mississauga, the rest, nine of them lost and most of them lost miserably.

Rowena Santos of Parkdale was considered a sure-win at the start of the campaign. If not for the entry of Gord Perks who was endorsed by Mayor David Miller, we could be celebrating now the election of a Filipino-Canadian to the Toronto City Council. But that’s another story.

It’s true that some candidates did not have a chance and did not really expect to win. But they should not be faulted for running just to test the water. The experience of campaigning alone can give them and their supporters valuable insights into how the chase for electoral positions works.

But why did many of the candidates from our community fail to get elected? Or, since they didn’t really aim seriously for a win, how can the voters take them seriously in the first place?

I think, the relevant question at this point is, Why didn’t the Filipino Canadians go out and vote in huge numbers? Or, Why didn’t they support the candidates from their community? Because if they did both, we would have a few elected Councillors already. Or even MPs.

These are tough questions to answer. Maybe a good scientific survey can give a more credible answer. But let us attempt to crack this tough nut, anyway.

The general electoral apathy of the people in our community can be traced to their situation of not being really integrated into the civic life in the city. When immigrants arrive in Toronto, they’re fully preoccupied with finding a job, settling the family, adjusting culturally to a diverse population and to the myriad details of city life. You have to adjust to the garbage collection schedules, the huge TTC subway system, the buses that come on time, the school-children’s activities, the language used in fast foods (“to go” and “for here”). The income taxes, the tax refunds, the baby bonuses, the GST and all. All these years, as immigrants, you can’t vote. You didn’t care about mayors and councillors and MPs and MPPs, especially that they have foreign-sounding names. Many are not even familiar English names.
When you get to be citizen, all of a sudden you can vote. But since old habits die hard, you didn’t care about voting. Until you hear oldtimers in the community talk about politics. Then you start to listen and learn that there are three levels of government in Canada, that the MPs work in Ottawa and the MPPs work at Queens Park. Then you distinguish between the politician who talked in a Filipino party and another you saw on TV.

By the time this happens, many of us leave Toronto for a first home we bought in the suburbs of Mis-sissauga, Scarborough or Richmond Hill and start recognizing politicians’ names and faces all over again. But those who chose to stay in Toronto get to know these politicians. Yet they’re still detached from politics.

And when you get to be active in the community, you get involved in an endless succession of parties, inductions, picnics, dance and song concerts and festivals, independence day gala nights, exhibits, organiza-tional meetings. Once in a while you have controversies over funds and community centers, election fraud in organizations, Filipino style.

Once in a while, too, politicians get to talk in these events and mouth platitudes about Canada’s multi-culturalism, that the diversity of people in Canada is its strength. Yet they fail to explain why ethnic communities have been the poorest in ages and they remain politically powerless despite their numbers.

Even the supposed leaders don’t talk about how to change this situation. So how can you have a strong “civic-minded” Filipino vote when there is no sense of where we are, why and what can be done? Many of the community “leaders” get to be the lieutenants of politicians and later get appointed to salaried government positions. In the meantime, we blame the community for not coming out to vote for our candidates? What do these candidates stand for, anyway? What interests would they represent and serve once elected? Do we know?