The Alberta provincial election will be called soon to elect Members of the Alberta Legislative Assembly (MLA). With election, comes competition for your lawn for lawn signs, for your time to volunteer, for your talents and skills to help campaign. Your phone lines and emails will be busy with messages, while your attention bombarded with messages from billboards, TV, print, and online.

Voter turnout in Alberta provincial election historically fluctuates between 41% and 82%, but multicultural communities have yet to arrive. The poor showing of multicultural communities in Alberta election is due to historic reasons from their countries of birth, as well as, prevailing situation in their new home, Alberta.

Multicultural Communities have Arrived in Alberta but their Votes have not Yet.

Historically, most multicultural community members come from countries where election is not free and their votes don’t count. In some countries, supporting a political party or have a certain opinion can be the difference between life and death. In most cases politicians are corrupt, plagued with rampant abuse of power, embezzlement, nepotism, and gross mismanagement. Well, no doubt the reason why this people immigrated to Alberta, Canada to seek a better future for themselves and their children.

Those who escaped chronic mismanagement came to Alberta expecting a new beginning with tones of hopes to make breakthroughs into the bright future they never had. Well, as in many cases it turned out many do not get in the game for quite some time. Most people have to result to survival jobs to take care of their families. Many who were top professionals in their careers have to be reduced to desperate labour with multiple jobs, re-branded with a deflated morale and a shadow of their once vibrant selves. A tiny fraction do make it to successful careers but are reminded by a small anti-immigrant segment of the majority population on a daily basis that they do not belong, not because of their skills, not their talents, but their heritage. This daily wrestle with survival, lack of a sense of identity, and belonging, paints a pretty nasty picture for multicultural communities to be more involved in community building and of course elections.

Do Newcomers Need a “Post-Arrival” Dream?

There must be a better way to bring everyone along in the Albertan dream. There is a need for a new dream, a new future for more people to realize their dreams. That takes political leaders who truly care. Well, but they first have to be voted in, right?

Yes and interestingly, Alberta is changing, and is changing very fast. One in every five Albertan was born out of Canada and the multicultural communities starts to be worth their weight in numbers. Their fast growing populations can count if the politicians know how to use it in a country that is drastically different from the countries of heritage of members of the multicultural communities. In a country where their votes will count, where they need change more than anyone else, in a country where they can form alliances with those who respect and truly want to fix things for them, they will have to take a break from the survival, identity, and belonging struggle to seek real and lasting change that can improve things for the better. They will have to pledge their support to those that can truly champion their causes like recognition of credentials to help them find jobs quickly, tackle high unemployment in those communities, take on chronic under-employment, inclusion in decision making, inclusion is sharing opportunities, respect for their cultural heritage, rampant racism, and many other things of paramount importance to them.

The Main Political Actors in Alberta…

This week, Premier and Leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Rachel Notley took questions from multicultural media in Edmonton to share her accomplishments and her vision for these communities going into the election. Jason Kenney, Leader of the United Conservative Party (UCP) is having an election readiness event tomorrow in Edmonton and Diversity will be sharing what he has to offer on all our platforms. We will be sharing what the others have to offer; the Alberta Party led by Stephen Mandel, Alberta Liberal Party with David Khan at the head and the Freedom Conservative Party of Alberta with Derek Fildebrandt at the driver’s seat.