From 'going for the jugular' to making 'the minority voice heard': This week's By-Election roundup2/15/2019 Both Prime Minister Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland visited the hot-contest riding of Burnaby South and ethnic media’s vocal coverage of the area continued. Facebook also received a fair share of coverage in multicultural and multilingual media—many expressing concern over virtual threats and internet trolls. As well, increased government ad spending lining the pockets of Facebook and social media sites versus traditional print media. Korean media highlights Singh saying he will “make the minority voice heard” and Caribbean media calling out Andrew Scheer for “going for the jugular” and more in this week’s special collection of by-election reporting from Canada’s ethnic media. Prepared by MIREMS multilingual consultants coast-to-coast. Plus: Explore these stories by the numbers on Multicultural Meanderings. Korean: "Singh 'I will make the minority voice heard'" Vancouver's Korean Chosun Ilbo reports: NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, a candidate in the Burnaby South by-election, visited Northroad Korean town to encourage the voters’ support. Singh said: “My political career started from a wish for minority communities to be a member of Canadian society, I will represent immigrants’ rights.” Conservative candidate Jay Shin held a fund-raising event and said: “It is a challenge for a rookie, but I’ll fight for the economic stability and better quality of life of Burnaby residents.” (08/02/2019). Urdu: "Canada's housing crisis and mortgage stress test are officially election issues" The weekly Urdu Pakistan Post reports: In a debate in the House of Commons, the Conservatives took aim at the mortgage stress test that requires Canadians to show they can withstand higher interest rates. “The stress test is a one-size-fits-all tool that punishes Canadians from coast to coast to coast, regardless of conditions in their local market,” Conservative MP Tom Kmiec said in a speech in the House. “It’s a deal for big banks, not Canadians.” With most of Canada’s housing problems centered in Vancouver and Toronto, Kmiec said the stress test is having a destructive effect on his Calgary riding. The debate was sparked by an NDP motion that tackles the housing issue from the other side of the ideological spectrum, calling on the government to create 500,000 affordable housing units in the next 10 years, with half of them completed in five years. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, who is vying for a seat in the upcoming Burnaby-South byelection in British Columbia where housing concerns dominate, has also called on the government to double the first-time homebuyers’ credit. “We see how failure to address needs of people at one end of the housing continuum affects people all along it,” said Jean-Yves Duclos, the minister of families, children and social development, said during the debate. (07/02/2019). Caribbean: "Andrew Scheer is going for the jugular" G 98.7 FM Mark & Jem in the Morning in Toronto reports: Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asking him to waive the solicitor-client privilege so former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould can publicly talk about what happened with SNC Lavalin. Trudeau campaigned in Burnaby, flanked by cabinet and caucus colleagues, but not Vancouver MP Wilson-Raybould, even though she was in town talking to voters earlier in the day. (11/02/2019) Filipino: "Trudeau says Liberals will win in B.C. by-election where Singh seeks seat" Laura Kane writes for the Philippine Canadian Inquirer: Justin Trudeau said the Liberal candidate in Burnaby South will be a strong voice for the community, as he campaigned on Sunday in the riding where New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh is seeking a seat. The prime minister told a crowd of supporters that Richard T. Lee served Burnaby, B.C., for 16 years as a provincial legislator and continues to work hard every day to put the best face forward for the city. While the Green Party of Canada has extended a “leader’s courtesy” to Singh by not running a candidate against him, other parties have not. Conservative Jay Shin and People’s Party of Canada candidate Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson are also vying for a seat. Lee said he’s proud to be part of “Team Trudeau” because he believes in transparent, better politics and a strong, multicultural Canada. “In Burnaby South, we need a committed, local champion for our community,” he said, adding he has lived in the Metro Vancouver city for 32 years. (11/02/2019). Chinese: "Outlook on the 2019 federal election" Chinese Canadian Voice from Cambridge, Ontario reports: The author discusses the performance of the leaders of the three main federal political parties and provides an analysis of the potential outcome of the 2019 federal election in October. In particular, the author says that although the performance of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has not been ideal, the Opposition Party leaders are not any better. The author says that the only advantage of Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is perhaps his age. His only accomplishment since he became head of the party may be the fact he made his internal opponent Maxime Bernier quit the Conservative Party. It would be difficult for the Chinese community to support Scheer given his attitude towards Canada's free trade negotiations with China and towards the Chinese company Huawei. (04/02/2019). Punjabi: "Does Jagmeet's ownership of a $5.5 million mansion make a difference to his election campaign?" WTOR 770 AM South Asian Voice in Toronto reports: DP Leader Jagmeet Singh is a point of discussion. Some sources report that he has a mansion worth $5.5 million. The veracity of this information is still questionable and the future will tell us what the truth is. A top writer of Maclean’s magazine has wondered what difference it makes if he has such a mansion. The writer commented if Singh wants to bring good policies, it doesn't matter whether he lives in a palace or a small home. This news has made a lot of headlines and the (hosts') program will continue to give the listeners information about new developments. (13/02/2019). Arabic: "Fake accounts on Twitter to influence internal discussions in Canada" Samir Bin-Jafar reports for Montreal's RCI Arabic: Many fake accounts on the social networking site Twitter have tried to inflate negative messages about oil pipelines and immigration to Canada, according to an analysis done by the CBC. About 9.6 million tweets were linked to suspected foreign political interference campaigns. In all, about 21,600 tweets from these fake accounts targeted Canadian accounts directly. In addition, a network of automated accounts has been coordinated to amplify the negative messages related to the Keystone XL and Kinder Morgan pipeline projects. Since then Twitter has deleted these accounts. The social network believes they were run from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. (13/02/2019). Punjabi: "NDP leader Jagmeet Singh attended the annual Chinese New Year parade in Vancouver on Sunday" Red FM 93.1 Punjabi Morning in Vancouver reports: Singh called on Trudeau to waive solicitor-client privilege to allow former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to speak about allegations the PMO is facing. (11/02/2019). These stories have been translated and summarized by MIREMS consultants, who read, watch and listen to multicultural and multilingual media every day in order to make language barriers transparent and make diverse voices accessible in Canada’s political and social discourse
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MIREMS By-Election reporting continues with media outlets continuing to write editorial pieces on their community's voters. Coverage continued of Singh's all-or-nothing Burnaby election and Arabic and Korean sources chimed in as well. Take a look at the numbers from Multicultural Meanderings. MIREMS shares this special collection of multilingual and multicultural media coverage: Punjabi: "Outremont by-election: Survey results showing NDP in trouble" WTOR 770 AM Radio South Asian Pulse Prime Time reports: The NDP does not appear to have a strong position in the Quebec by-election. Three surveys conducted over the last few weeks suggest that the NDP is in trouble in Quebec, where the party won 16 seats in the 2015 federal election. The by-election in Outremont (Quebec) will be held on February 25. The most recent four-week rolling poll from Nanos Research pegged NDP support in Quebec at just under 11 per cent. In a poll published last week, Mainstreet Research put it at nine per cent, while the Léger/Journal de Montréal survey published on Monday gave the New Democrats just eight per cent support in Quebec, ranking it in a distant fourth place. The Liberals, Conservatives and the Bloc are all looking to make seat gains at the expense of the NDP. All 16 of the New Democrats' Quebec seats are vulnerable. (06/02/2019) Punjabi: "The bankruptcy of ethnic vote banks"Tarek Fateh writes in Khabarnama Punjabi Weekly: Much has been written about the crass ethno-racial baiting employed by Karen Wang, the now dismissed Liberal Party candidate for the Burnaby South byelection where she was facing NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. All hell broke loose among the political elite of the country. It was as if Wang had committed an act of racism and had violated the foundations of Canada's supposed non-racial, non-ethnic election process where ideas and platforms count, not the ethnicity or race of the candidate. The fact is Wang was honest enough to put her words where her mouth was. If Wang was guilty of relying on 'her' Chinese vote-bank, wasn't Jagmeet Singh also running in the riding because it had a large Sikh or Indo-Canadian community? Both Wang and Singh played ethnic vote-bank politics, except one got caught and the other remained mum, hoping no one would notice his abandoning Brampton voters just to get inside parliament. It is not just in Burnaby South where Canada is being subject to ghetto politics. This is happening across urban Canada. One example is the Conservative Party's nomination fight for the Ontario riding of Mississauga-Erindale in November 2018. In the contest, a prominent former MP from the riding Bob Dechert was soundly defeated because he did not have a tribe to rely on. The solution is simple: Every member of a political party should have renewed their membership at least once in two consecutive years to have the right to vote in nomination battles. Otherwise, Canada's democracy is for sale to tribalism. (01/02/2019) Punjabi: "Fundraising NDP vote bank may be divided in 2019 federal elections: Mulcair" Toronto's Hamard Daily reports: Amid record-breaking fundraising numbers from the Green Party and what Leader Elizabeth May called “a rise in support overall,” former NDP head Thomas Mulcair says NDP voters may vote for the Green Party in the 2019 federal elections. People who believe that environmental issues should be top of mind are therefore going to start paying attention to May’s Green Party. With the People's Party splitting the vote on the right, the vote bank of Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives may also be slashed. (05/02/2019). Cantonese: "Controversial Grewal fundraiser earned almost $300,000, MP claims in new statement" Fairchild TV British Columbia reports: An unusually lucrative fundraiser for a former Liberal politician beset with gambling debts generated just under $300,000, according to a new statement from the now independent MP. But the comments Raj Grewal made on Twitter Friday about the fundraising dinner last April also raise more questions, as he suggested that fewer than half of the 1,200 guests at the event actually paid for tickets, and that the money was needed for the kind of long campaign no longer possible under new election laws. The fundraiser — with its exceptionally large turnout and attendant large potential revenue — has come under close scrutiny since Grewal’s gambling problems led to him being thrown out of the Liberal caucus. The Brampton MP admitted he racked up millions of dollars in debts playing casino blackjack, and he is reportedly under investigation by the RCMP. (05/02/2019) Arabic: "Ottawa: The opposition is aiming its arrows at the government in this election year" May Abu-Saab reports fro Montreal's RCI Arabic: The Canadian House of Commons opened its regular session on January 28, the last session before the legislative elections scheduled for Oct. 21. Although the date of the elections is still relatively far, all Canadian political parties are acting as if they are in an undeclared and premature election campaign. The opposition party has directed its arrows at the Liberal government, and Andrew Scheer sees the Liberal government as failing in its fiscal policy. He warned if Canadians re-elect the Liberals, they will pay more taxes and fees than they did under the former Conservative government led by Stephen Harper. (04/02/2019)
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