By Nicole Hunt
When he was 15 years old, Yasir Naqvi immigrated to Canada from Pakistan after his father was imprisoned for leading a pro-democracy march.
Nineteen years later, Naqvi considers it his civic duty to follow in his father’s footsteps by running for Ottawa-Centre MPP, following the retirement of Liberal Richard Patten, who has held the seat since 1987.
“If elected, I would like to work to make the community better,” he says. “I have been engaged in the community, working on key issues, like an effective long-term public transit strategy, and I am ready to serve the community.”
For Naqvi, these key issues are the strengthening of public institutions and increasing community safety.
Naqvi has been deeply involved with the Centretown community since moving to Ottawa 10 years ago. In addition to being on the Board of Directors for the Centretown Community Health Centre for several years, he has done extensive work with the Ottawa Food Bank, co-chairing the Capital Food Blitz since 2005.
“I am committed to issues that directly impact Centretown residents. We need to improve our community by strengthening the social services, the health and education systems that serve it.”
For Naqvi, this means an increase in stable funding for community health centres, which he says are better equipped to deal with the more immediate and localized community problems.
He would also like to see an investment in preventative medicine and the promotion of healthy lifestyles and community living, saying that this would benefit both the health care system and the environment.
“The environment and health care are related, and it’s important that we address both with pragmatic solutions,” explains Naqvi.
Naqvi believes that this grassroots funding would also work as part of an approach to addressing crime and safety issues in the city.
Naqvi is equally committed to maintaining the current funding scheme in place for the public school board.
He criticizes a Conservative proposal to extend funding to faith-based private schools, saying that it works against improvements happening within the public system.
“We’ve just turned a corner with public education after the Harris government cuts, and we need to continue doing that,” he says. “This is the time to be making investments, not cutting $500 million from the public system.”
One change Naqvi does approve of is the electoral reform being proposed in a referendum question on the ballot. Naqvi notes he would take the change one step further, saying that the list candidate selection methods would be insufficient.
“I think we should work to ensure, for example, gender parity within the government, and I would propose legislating that in the selection of the list candidates. We could make the selection more fair and more representative.”
Another group currently under-represented at Queen’s Park, according to Naqvi, is students.
“All three parties have failed our students,” he admits. “Tuition fees increased under both Conservative and NDP governments, and although the Liberals did fulfill a promise for a two-year freeze, more needs to be done.”