I first had the pleasure of meeting Imran at a Edward Blake Society event in Toronto a few weeks before the convention. I was really impressed and after perusing his website, I decided to vote for him. His speech at the 2012 LPC Biennial Convention was one of the best of any of the exec candidates. Mr. Ahmad is now V.P Francophone for the Liberal Party of Canada. After the convention I sent him 5 questions to find out more about his convention experience and his plans for helping to rebuild the Liberal Party.
What was the highlight of the convention for you?
One of the highlights was when Liberal members opted to allow “supporters” to choose the next Leader of the Party. While there may be risks involved with this initiative, it proved to me that the Party is ready to think outside the box.
There were other highlights such as seeing a huge delegate turnout, a large youth contingent and delegates coming to Ottawa despite the challenging weather. It demonstrated to me that Liberal members care and wanted their voices to be heard.
What would you change about the election process for the executive of the Liberal Party of Canada?
First, I would move to a one-member-one-vote approach. Second, I would ensure that we adopted a preferential ballot voting mechanism.
What do you believe will be your biggest challenge at V.P Francophone?
The key challenge will be to make the Party relevant to Francophones across the country. As of January 2012, a majority of Francophones do not believe that the Party represents their views or offers a vision that resonates with them.
That said, I still believe that the Party is the best political organization to represent Francophones from coast to coast. However, we must first engage them in a meaningful dialogue. This will require us going into all parts of Canada, even those where we have traditionally not been competitive.
Another big challenge will be to rebuild many of the “dead EDAs” in Quebec from the ground up by providing them support and resources.
What should activists like me be doing to help with the rebuilding process now that the convention is over?
First, your blog site is an important tool in spreading the message of what liberalism and being a Liberal means to you. In the past, many Liberals have felt that they no longer know what being a Liberal truly means. By highlighting these core values and perhaps comparing them to the values other Parties espouse, it can provide individuals who frequent your blog site a clearer picture of where they stand and what political party best represents the majority of their needs.
Second, get involved in your local riding association if you haven’t done so already. When you remain involved at the local level, your ideas and opinions can be more readily expressed and heard by other like-minded Liberals. Also encourage youth to get involved in your local association.
Third, if you have concrete strategic ideas on how we can re-build our Party from the grassroots up, share these ideas with your members of the National Board and other Liberals (MPs, supporters, members).
How do you plan on engaging French-speaking Canadians who live outside of Quebec?
Being a Francophone minority outside of Quebec, one of the aspects which has bothered me the most about all political parties is their lack of coherent and consistent communication in both National languages. I am in the process of discovering how the Liberal Party has communicated to Canadians in the past, and I hope to use this information to further streamline the communication process by ensuring that only qualified translators be utilised to ensure that all documentation that is put out by the Liberal Party is delivered in both the French and English languages consistently.
When Francophones outside of Quebec (including those who are bilingual) receive communication in a language they feel most comfortable with, it is anticipated that this act will demonstrate how the Liberal Party continues to respect the traditions and language of French-speaking individuals across Canada.
Second, I plan on visiting regions of Canada where there are traditionally significant Francophone populations (e.g. New Brunswick, Alberta, Ontario etc.). I hope to converse with individuals from these areas to ask them how the Liberal Party can once again ensure their inclusion as we move forward in building a better political party and nation.
Third, I am committed to being accessible by email (imran@imranahmadvpf.ca), phone (1-888-808-3336), and my participation in online forums. I have already taken the necessary steps to contact all Liberal Provincial and Territorial associations by providing them with this information in return for their participation in providing me with the necessary information I would need to reach out to the various francophone populations in their regions.
The bottom line is that if we as a Liberal Party wish to re-engage the millions of Francophones both inside and outside of Quebec, then we have to be willing to take the first step by reaching out to them, including visitations to those parts of Canada that have not traditionally voted Liberal in the past. Without doubt this will be a massive endeavour and it is anticipated that we may also meet with some opposition, but so long as we operate on the core Liberal values of inclusion, encouraging grassroots participation and most of all keeping an open mind, it is anticipated that we will be able to make some inroads by re-engaging many if not most disenfranchised Canadians.
(Photo by Melissa Martinez Leo.)
What a load of crap from this party, the party that devides…all BS.
This is THE biggest scam, the biggest fraud and lie ever forced upon the Canadian public. People have no idea what this man Trudeau did to this country.
“Quebec can make French the only official language in spite of the Constitution”. Pierre Trudeau, .
“There is no way two ethnic groups in one country can be made equal before the law….and to say it is possible is to sow the seeds of destruction”. Pierre Trudeau,
.” ….Given these facts, should French-speaking people concentrate their efforts on Quebec. or take the whole of Canada as their base? In my opinion, they should do both; and for the purpose they could find no better instrument than federalism”, Pierre Trudeau,.
“I cannot swear it but I think we were thinking to ourselves,… we are a small group, Trudeau, Pelletier, Marchand, Lalonde, Chrétien, myself and a few people in the civil service, say 50 all told…we were bringing off a revolution. We held the key posts. We were making the civil service bilingual (French), kicking and screaming all the time”. Jean-Luc Pepin, Minister of Industry, 1970.
50 years of spin, lies…thats what we have got. They are changing the names of towns, streets, counties, bodies of water, riding names…and I’m not taking about kebec any longer. It’s now going on all over the country; it’s a mess in Ottawa where they name things after anti-English language bigots and racists all the time. They are slowly wiping out our English, Scottish, Irish, United empire loyalists history. Just like they’ve been doing in Quebec for the last 5 decades (bills 22, 178, 101…)…This is one of the main reasons we are not teaching any history from 1760 to 1982 in our schools any longer. These racist people control government, the curriculum, our money…we get a daily dose of spin, lies and propaganda.
Wake up… They run everything in Ottawa, they funnel the money where they want, spin, lies, propaganda, revisionist BS … Proof – In that there is constant pressure to rewrite our history – to pacify the cranky Province of Quebec and the “french “outside Quebec – the reason we lost the Red Ensign in the first place – we must do what we can to protect and preserve our history. A history that is under constant attack. Very few Canadians are aware that we now have portraits in our parliament of French Kings – who had nothing to do with the building of Canada- the statue of General James Wolfe no longer overlooks the Plains of Abraham, the only statue in Quebec City is of the losing General, Montcalm. There are statues of three French generals but no statues of the victorious generals at the Valiant’s memorial in Ottawa. That’s right, no General Wolfe, no General Amherst, No Gen Murray… This historical revisionism is going on right under the noses of the Governments we elect – and they remain silent!
The simple facts are as more francophone’s get hired for all government positions less and less English speakers are working for their own governments across the country. Don’t believe me; Go check the stats for yourself. Francophone’s are over-represented in all levels of government including hospitals, law, policing…etc. No fairness, no representation by population. They call it bilingualism, yet the term is never defined on purpose and believe me it doesn’t mean fluency in 2 languages in Canada, at least to the French it doesn’t. No political party will speak for the English speaking majority in this province and country. Practical bilingualism, where numbers warrant… is never defined on purpose. In Ontario, NB it now means segregation. The French (they are actually metis, a mixed race, not french) are demanding French only facilities all over the province, not bilingual, French only. $ Bilingualism is really nothing more then a hiring quota for francophone’s and that is a fact…just ask yourself, why are francophone’s over-represented in all government jobs and how come more and more positions are being designated bilingual all the time? And just as important, how come they are NOT fluently bilingual? Some can barely speak English!
See whats really going on here?
So while Quebec bans the English language (bill 22, bill 178, bill 101…), wipes out its real BNA, UEL history, while ethnic language cleansing is going on in Quebec, the rest of the country is forced to fund whatever the French (metis) demand. This is going on in every province. Go check.
“First Quebec, then we take over the rest of the country, one step at a time…through bilingualism…” PT, “How to take over a country through bilingualism…” SD. How ? First comes the right to communicate with gov’t in a minority language (ie French),then comes bilingualism, then comes the right to work in the language of choice(ie French), then comes a bilingual boss,(ie French) then comes a exclusively French department and on it goes until its all French. Its happening all over the country, Ontario, New Brunswick…That’s what’s really going on.
Go learn our proud, real BNA and UEL history. These were the builders of our country since 1763. Not this phony, revisionist lie, this bilingual, multicultural, 2 founding nations, linguistic duality lie, propaganda, spin that we’ve been living with since Trudeau, and kebec forced this upon the nation. We’ve been part of the British Empire since 1763 and officially an English speaking country for over 200 years…just a fact.
NO English speaking politician is telling you the truth, is exposing what is really going on.Not one politician has the decency, the honesty to expose the truth, to speak the truth,how pathetic. Poor Canada, what a mess. Please spread the word.The truth about Trudeau would be nice for a change. The man was a racist, an anti-English language, anti BNS bigot. Go read his writings; he despised our real BNA, UEL history.
Until the charter and all the bs (bilingual, multicultural, phony rights…crap) connected to it gets repealed, we will continue to self destruct as we have for the last 5 decades.
Excellent article. Thanks
M Ahmad, noublie pas Saint-Boniface et le Manitoba. Nous seron content de vous acceuillir!