Toronto, Sep 20, 2004
TESS KALINOWSKI
STAFF REPORTER
The Tornto Star
This is the seventh in a weekly series on the newly elected MPs from
the GTA.
At 27, Navdeep Bains already has a lot of letters after his name: MBA,
CA and now MP.
Still, he knows the first thing some people see when they look at him
is his turban. That's not altogether a bad thing, says the former Ford
Motor financial analyst, who was born in Toronto and raised in Brampton.
It makes him a good bridge between the Indian and non-Indian communities
that dominate his riding of Mississauga-Brampton South, which he swept
for the Liberals in June.
"I'm a Sikh by faith, an Indian by background and a Canadian by
birth, and I'm going to represent Canada through and through,"
he says.
Bains admits he's experienced racism but has mostly chosen to overlook
rude treatment in stores and restaurants. It isn't central to his vision
of Brampton or Canada. For Bains, the future that fuelled his immigrant
parents' dreams has arrived.
"I never think of myself as a second-class citizen. It's Canadian
first," he says. "I know that Canada now is no longer defined
by a specific, prototype look. It's a lot of different looks."
He also knows his experience isn't necessarily typical. His English
doesn't have an Indian accent and in his riding he's part of the majority.
Fifty-three per cent of his constituents are visible minorities.
Many of the issues on the federal stage have personal significance
for Bains' constituents, particularly immigration policies and national
security.
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`I'm a Sikh by faith, an Indian by background
and a Canadian by birth'
Navdeep Bains, MP
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Racial profiling at the border is "unacceptable," he says.
The experience of immigrants who come here with education and experience
only to find they're shut out of the job market is "very disappointing
and disheartening," Bains says. "They just need a foot in
the door. These are untapped resources. We have shortages of doctors,
nurses and teachers. All (immigrants) want is a system that allows them
an opportunity to do well. They don't want handouts. These are reasonable
requests."
Bains knows ethnic communities are generally good to the Liberals but
that a minority government is also a wakeup call. "The federal
government needs to deliver on its obligation for health care and it
needs to deliver on its agenda for cities."
A graduate of Turner Fenton Secondary School in Brampton, he studied
business at York University and completed an MBA at the University of
Windsor. While at York, he met his wife Brahamjot, 26, who works for
accounting giant KPMG and will finish her chartered accountant exams
in September. Bains calls her his key adviser.
As newlyweds, the Bains lived with his parents in the riding he now
represents. His father owns a small kitchen cabinetry business. Last
year, the MP and his wife bought a home just outside the constituency.
Now, he says they'll probably move back to the riding so he can be more
accessible to constituents.
Bains can rhapsodize at length on the merits of former prime minister
Pierre Trudeau and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "That
charter is so futuristic, it's so forward looking, it's really helped
define us as a nation. The sheer notion that you can be a Canadian,
but you can practise your individual beliefs and freedoms without having
anyone impose their will on you: These are things we take for granted.
There are so many countries around the world that would envy that kind
of belief structure," he says.
Still, the week he spent in Ottawa after the election is the longest
he's spent in the capital and Bains knows the separation from his wife
will add to the stress of a new job. "Initially it's going to be
very difficult. At the end of the day for me politics is not to make
money. It really isn't for the fame. It really is the public service
and my wife understands that. She understands it's my passion and partly
it's her passion as well."
Despite a promising finance career, Bains says his work with Ford was
never as satisfying as the community service he's performed since university
with the Daily Bread Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity and children's
charities, including the Sunshine Walk for Dreams and the Guru Gobind
Singh Children's Foundation.
While he waits for Parliament to be recalled, Bains is meeting with
constituents, adamant that he's there to serve the entire riding, not
just the people who voted for him. He's also moved out of the campaign
office in a strip mall on Hurontario St. north of Highway 407 to more
accessible digs near Kennedy Rd. and Courtney Parkway.
A couple of weeks before moving he was still studying a campaign map,
particularly the areas coloured blue. Those are the pockets where he
gained the least support; places, he says, where disillusionment over
the sponsorship scandal and the lack of health care and child-care services
came home to roost. Bains wants to hold town hall meetings in those
areas.
As one of the youngest newcomers to Parliament, he jokes about waiting
for a call to cabinet, but he knows constituency issues will occupy
a lot of his time. "When I was door-knocking, people physically
pointed out potholes to me," he says. "These are matters that
I might not necessarily on my own change, but I can work with the councillors.
I can help make sure monies we have committed at the federal level are
used appropriately at the local level."