Minorities made real gains at polls

Breakthrough for non-white candidates in office traditionally hardest to crack
TORONTO STAR. Nov. 29, 2006. 01:00 AM. PAGE D4
NICHOLAS KEUNG
IMMIGRATION/DIVERSITY REPORTER

As municipal councils across the GTA start taking oaths of office and settling down to business next week, a few will look a little less white bread than they did before the Nov. 13 election.
Overall, members of visible minorities will hold 14 municipal seats — up from nine in the 2003 election. The gains are all in the regions: four seats in York Region alone, one in Oakville, and one in Clarington, where newly elected Willie Woo will sit as the only visible-minority councillor in Durham Region.
Toronto's 45-member city council, on the other hand, will see a drop from five to four.
That there are gains at all is a breakthrough for an office traditionally the hardest for minority candidates to crack, largely because of the lack of a party system to support newcomers.
Even for his fellow Chinese Canadians, Woo's election win in Clarington seems an anomaly.
The 52-year-old quality-control inspector, believed to be the only visible-minority person elected to a council seat in Durham Region, didn't have an "ethnic vote" to count on in this fairly homogenous community.
But he had all the real components of success: long-term entrenchment in the community, involvement well beyond the candidate's ethnic group, and a race lacking an incumbent or too many visible-minority candidates siphoning votes.
"That's a lot of ingredients in a recipe, and it didn't come up in a lot of wards," noted Myer Siemiatycki, professor of politics and public administration at Ryerson University. "We are talking about a small number of races where the variety of dynamics came into play to put these candidates on the top."
Born in Canada, Woo has lived in Clarington since 1954, when his family moved there from Peterborough to open a restaurant. For years, he has worked at the Goodyear plant and volunteered at community Christmas feasts, polar bear swims, organ tissue donation drives, Heart and Stroke Foundation events, blood clinics, Terry Fox runs and a women's shelter.
"A lot of the voters saw me growing up here. Many thought of me simply as Willie, as a hometown boy. You are just one of them," explained Woo, who ran unsuccessfully against an incumbent for a regional council seat in 2000. "I wouldn't say my victory came as a surprise, but it's definitely monumental."
Visible minorities, according to a Star analysis based on photographs and surnames of the winners, also made some headway in GTA school boards.
Veteran community activist Marlene Mogado, one of two Filipino Canadian Catholic trustees elected, said running in a ward with high visible-minority population doesn't always work to your advantage.
Almost a decade ago, she ran for a Markham council seat in a wide-open race against six others. The victor, Tony Wong, later became a Liberal MPP and now is back as a regional councillor.
"It's difficult to unseat an incumbent because the incumbent's name is known and recognized, but that's why you need to build credentials and a strong support base through your community involvement," said Mogado, who has served on the boards of the district health council, training and adjustment body, race relations committee and children's festival.
"What made the difference between my two races was I ran (for council) in a Chinese dominant ward, and this time, I ran as a trustee for four wards (4, 5, 7 and 8 in Markham), and there isn't a monopoly of one dominant group any more." Mogado squeaked by incumbent Frank Alexander by 147 votes.
Olga Lambert, a French-born Togolese who's been in Canada for 20 years, credits the shared minority status of francophone for her win in an open Durham French Separate School Board seat. It helps to have a French name on the ballot, she noted.
"The francophone community in Ontario is very diverse, and it's not really an issue whether you're a minority or not," said the Ajax computer analyst. "French is already a minority in Ontario, and we all want to keep our kids in French schools."
Historically, minority candidates have suffered under the assumption that their first loyalty is to their ethno-cultural group. But Siemiatycki said their triumph in the 905 areas is a sending a message to the rest of Canada that you needn't be white to speak for all Canadians.
While it's fair to say the dominance of Chinese voters in pockets of York Region helped get Chinese candidates elected, he said their success underscores the importance of reaching out to the broader community.
Veteran Caledon regional councillor Annette Groves, a Jamaican Canadian of South Asian descent, said candidates may be hindered by self-consciousness about their minority status, as she was when she won a wide-open race in 2000.
"We tend to limit ourselves because we're (thinking that) we're not going to succeed," said the ex-dental office administrator, who immigrated in 1979 and has lived in Caledon 14 years.
"But you have to put all that stuff aside to be yourself. People will accept you for who you are. They don't see me as a brown girl talking to them, but as Annette, someone who represents everybody's concerns in the community."
While most victors have lived in their towns for a long time, rookie Max Khan, 34, elected in Oakville's Ward 6, said that shouldn't matter as long as the person is fully engaged.
Voters have become more sophisticated and a candidate's cultural heritage is no longer a big deal, he said, provided he or she thoroughly understands local needs and can articulate ways of addressing them. "It's the nitty gritty local issues that voters really care about. You need substance, or voters are going to see through that," said the Canadian-born lawyer.
"A lot of times visible minorities are not entering the race unless a threshold is reached and they see a Sikh, a Hindu or Chinese being elected. And they wait for that threshold." Khan, whose heritage is Pakistani, is believed to be Oakville's first visible minority councillor.
Joseph W. Wong, vice president of the Chinese Canadian Civic Association, was particularly buoyed by the success of candidates from his community, which sent 10 of its 44 GTA hopefuls to councils and boards.
To have even better results four years from now would require stronger "strategic planning" among visible-minority groups to co-ordinate their limited human and financial resources, he says.
That's already emerging in Markham, where six Chinese candidates running in different wards campaigned as a team. Grassroots groups like Wong's helped promote voter turnout.
Official information from Markham showed that 36 per cent of the town's Chinese voters cast ballots in the advance polls, up from 17 per cent in 2003.
"I think we're entering a pioneering stage in our municipal politics because we're seeing more candidates running, more people voting," said Wong.
"But at the end of the day, there's no miracle in election. You have to earn it with years of hard work in your community. That's the golden rule...."