With his family and well-known community leaders and friends around him to stress his political outlook, Filipino-Canadian lawyer Rafael Fabregas kicks off a grassroots campaign to win the nomination of the Liberal Party of Canada and hopefully become its standard bearer in the election for a seat in Parliament representing Scarborough Centre riding in the Greater Toronto Area. Young as he is, Fabregas already made a meaningful achievement in reforming the system of granting permanent residence to caregivers through what’s popularly called the Juana Tejada Law.
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TORONTO – Volunteers swamped the campaign recently launched by Filipino-Canadian lawyer Rafael Fabregas to clinch the nomination of the Liberal Party of Canada as official candidate for Scarborough Centre riding.
“Friends of Raffy,” a group of concerned citizens from Greater Toronto Area, and individual voters turned up at Filipino Centre Toronto on Sunday, March 2, in what appears to be a groundswell of support for the well-known advocate for caregivers.
Fabregas’ work with a caregiver, the late Juana Tejada, has led to reforms and passage of regulations denominated as the “Juana Tejada Law” allowing caregivers and their families to apply for permanent resident status.
At the campaign launch at the FCT building on Parliament St., FCT president Linda Javier noted that of the more than 300 members of the House of Commons, not one is of Filipino descent.
“It’s about time that we do something about it,” she said to the applause and yelling of the crowd. Fabregas, she said, believes in equal opportunity and public health care – two of the platforms that the Liberal Party of Canada espouses.
Fabregas said he it’s a “great idea for Filipinos to come out and support Filipinos to become elected members of the House of Commons”.
“And what better place,” he stressed, “than the Filipino Centre Toronto to kick off this campaign to stand a Filipino from Parliament Street to Parliament Hill”.
“I’m here today for my family,” he declared. “I’m here today because of my family – you. I want a better future for my family, for my community, for the people of Scarborough Centre who I hope to represent and I will represent, and for all of Canada”.
The Scarborough Centre riding has a significant Filipino population. It’s one of the districts in the Greater Toronto Area where visible minorities reside.
Fabregas outlined his plans once elected, declaring that “I want to change the direction that Canada is heading for right now x x x the visible minorities have a bleak future because the door to Canada is slowly closing”.
“It is getting harder to immigrate to Canada, and it’s only getting worse,” he said. “In a few months’ time, it’s also becoming harder for those who have immigrated to Canada to become citizens of Canada”.
Immigration has been one of the contentious issues that is at the heart of discussions in Parliament. As an immigration lawyer, Fabregas is familiar with current concerns, specially among Filipino immigrants.
“Ten years down the road,” he asked, “what will Canada look like because of policies in place? I welcome change, no question, but I welcome positive change. And that is what I will fight for in Parliament”.
Fabregas vowed “to undo the wrongs” committed by the Conservative government in the last eight years.
“Becoming a Canadian citizen should not be as difficult as this government today wants it to be,” he emphasized. “Canadian citizenship should mean the same thing for all of us, whether you’re born here or naturalized like me.”
Fabregas said citizenship and the rights that go with it should not be fraught with too many hurdles.
“What they want to do is shameful,” he said. “Canadian citizenship has rights and responsibilities that allow you to fully integrate into society. It also includes you right to vote for your leaders.It also gives you the right to become leaders of this country”.
Fabregas exhorted supporters “to take that extra step now” because “we’ve seen that after elections our interests don’t really get served fully. We have to be elected leaders and have a place in the halls in Ottawa where laws are written and not just given a sober second thought, to be the lawmakers and not just the law-abiders.
If Fabregas wins the party nomination sometime in June and later gets elected to the House of Commons, he will be the second Filipino to serve as a Member of Parliament. The first was Rey D. Pagtakhan, a physician, who was an MP representing a riding in Winnipeg, Manitoba from 1988 till he lost in the 2004 election. #
