Liberals launch outreach campaign in bid to recapture ethnic vote

Bob Rae wants everyone to have “um Dia do Canada muito feliz.”

That’s Portuguese for “a very happy Canada Day.”

And that’s only one of 26 languages — apart from the requisite English and French — into which the Liberal leader’s Canada Day message has been translated and shipped to ethnic groups and media outlets around the country.

It’s part of a nascent campaign by Liberals to recapture the support of ethnic communities, once among the most reliable supporters of the self-styled “natural governing party.”

A concerted effort by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives has eroded that one-time Liberal bedrock, prompting a mass defection of new Canadians to the Tories in the May 2 election. The Liberals were handed their worst drubbing in history, reduced to a rump of 34 seats as dozens of multi-ethnic urban bastions fell.

But now there are signs that the Liberals are fighting back.

Rae has appointed Toronto MP Jim Karygiannis, a sometimes controversial figure but among the party’s best ethnic organizers, as his multiculturalism critic. And Karygiannis is hoping to give Immigration Minister Jason Kenney — crowned the “King of Multiculturalism” earlier this year for his tireless efforts to woo new Canadians — a run for his money.

“Every community — be it an ethnic community, be it a religious community, be it a special interest community — every community, in my book, is to be approached, to be listened to, to break bread with, to have a cup of coffee with,” says Karygiannis.

“And if we don’t pay attention, even to the smallest community, then why the hell should they pay attention to us?”

Over the past couple of years, Liberals have disdained Kenney’s “curry in a hurry” tour, in which he’s shown up at every conceivable ethnic event across the country. They sneered when a memo from Kenney’s office was inadvertently leaked, revealing a media strategy aimed at “very ethnic” ridings.

Liberals maintained Kenney was “using” ethnic communities and vowed to do things differently, treating people as “Canadians first.”

But that strategy flopped; Liberals found themselves accused of taking ethnic communities for granted. So, now they appear determined to beat Kenney at his own game.

“No voter or community can be taken for granted,” says Rae. “Everything we do as a party has to be based on that. It’s that simple.”

Karygiannis says the party is “going back to basics.”

“We’re going back to making sure we know … every nook and cranny, back to make sure that we speak to all the communities, to make sure that nobody’s left out.”

As part of that effort, Karygiannis has asked his 33 fellow MPs to help compile contact information for all religious institutions and ethnic media, organizations and stakeholders across the country. He’s also asked them to keep him apprised of local celebrations and important ethnic community dates or events in their ridings.

And he’s enlisted volunteers — including former MPs — to help translate important party messages into everything from Arabic, Burmese, Farsi and Kurdish to Russian, Serbian, Tamil and Urdu.

A recent message from Rae on the Air India tragedy was issued in Punjabi and Hindi.

It’s a small token of respect for these communities, Karygiannis says, but an important one.

“Is it important? Yes, it is, because if my mother can read a Canada Day message from a leader … it will also make her feel included because my mother doesn’t read a word of English. She speaks Greek,” he says.

“Respect for the communities we have in Canada starts with acknowledging the language that they speak.”

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