Former Regent Park Resident Ahmed Hussen and Toronto Centre MP, Marci Ien to sit in Cabinet

By -

Former Regent Park resident Ahmed Hussen becomes Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion

Former Regent Park resident Ahmed Hussen becomes Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, after previously serving as Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, where he struck child-care agreements with seven provinces and one territory, and rolled out a $1 billion “rapid housing” strategy to combat homelessness during COVID-19 that converted hotels and motels into housing units.

“Honoured to continue serving Canadians in Cabinet as Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion,” said Minister Hussen on his Facebook page. “With a dedicated Ministry for Housing, we will continue to make it easier for Canadians to find an affordable place to call home & ending chronic homelessness. Let's keep working!”

After arriving as a Somali refugee, Hussen lived with his brother in a subsidized apartment in Regent Park, the neighbourhood that gave him a zeal for the task Justin Trudeau has assigned to him: make housing more affordable, and make more affordable housing available.

“When I lived in Regent Park, it was the oldest and largest social housing neighbourhood in Canada, built in 1948. It was falling apart. There was no service, very little services, very little maintenance. But despite the fact that it was the oldest neighbourhood and very rundown, having that roof over my head allowed me to go to undergraduate studies, to even dream of going to university,” he said in an interview.

“I could never have been able to afford paying for a market rental unit and going to university at the same time as a new refugee to Canada, so I know the importance of that. Was it an adequate home? Was it a home that met all my needs? No, but it was a roof over my head and I can tell you it made a difference in my life.” Minister Hussen said.

In his third ministerial role, he is setting out to make a difference in Canada’s housing crisis.

Toronto Centre MP, Marci Ien is Canada's new minister of Women, Gender Equality and Youth and the first black woman to sit in cabinet in nearly 20 years

Former broadcaster and Toronto MP Marci Ien, representing Regent Park, Moss Park and St. James Town, will be responsible for the federal Department of Women and Gender Equality Canada under the Trudeau cabinet.

Marci Ien, who was born in St Jamestown and raised in Toronto, takes over the relatively new department, at a crucial time and in the face of enormous uncertainty and extraordinary challenges to tackle the entrenched disparities that undermine the health and well-being of marginalized women and communities and also to implement the Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls under the direction of Indigenous women, and a comprehensive and appropriately-resourced National Action Plan to prevent and combat all forms of violence against women.

The purpose of the department is to advance equality with respect to sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression through the inclusion of people of all genders, including women, in Canada’s economic, social, and political life" as well as the intersection of these with other identities such as ethnicity, age, socio-economic level, disability, and others.

One of the most important things that the Department of Women and Gender Equality does is provide funding for organizations that empower women's rights in Canada. The department provides funding through the Women’s Program whose three priority areas lie in ending violence against women and girls, improving women's and girls' economic security and prosperity, and encouraging women and girls in leadership and decision-making roles.

Written by
Fred Alvarado

Journalist
FOCUS Media Arts Centre

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regent Park Portrayed in Film and Television

By -
Image
Toronto has a rich history of being a go-to shooting location for many television and film production companies. Some notable films shot here over the years include Good Will Hunting (1997), Billy Madison (1998), American Psycho (2000), and X-Men (2000). Regent Park has also had its share of showcases in film. This article aims to review the general content of movie dramas and televisions shows shot in Regent and explore their relationship to the community. Clement Virgo is a director, producer, and writer from Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was born in 1966 and moved to the Regent Park area in Toronto in 1977. During this time Regent Park was generally populated by low-income families and as a hot spot for drugs. Virgo is most recently known for his roles in Greenleaf (2016-2018), The Book of Negroes (2015), and The Wire (2002) as Director and/or Producer. His first feature-length film, however, was Rude (1995), which was filmed almost entirely in the old Regent Park. “The film told...
Read more

What Social Inclusion Means to Me

By -
I had moved into Regent Park only a few days before I saw the pink, fuchsia, strawberry, indigo, yellow, green, neck streamers and sparkling robes worn by children, parents, aunts, uncles, and elders as they marched passed my kitchen door. Soon, the nearby Athletic Grounds was blazing with colour. Although it was the first time I heard them, the intonations on the microphone were recognizable, even to me, as prayers. It was Eid, the concluding celebration after Ramadan. It was a beautiful sight. I am a White Jewish senior and I hunted for a stairless condo for years before I chose to live in Regent Park and then only because a relative did business with the new seniors’ building there. “Regent Park?” a friend exclaimed. “You are going to have ethnic problems.”  “Not I.  I come from a long line of fiery leftie activists.” I replied. Stage four and five of revitalizing this post-war subsidized development into a multi-income community was just beginning and I ju...
Read more

Meet Your Neighbourhood Police Officers – PC Mircea Biga and PC Farzad Ghotbi

By -
Image
Community-based policing is a proactive law enforcement strategy that focuses on building ties and working closely with a community’s members to create partnerships and plans for preventing and reducing crime. While community policing will look differently depending on the community it serves, a central feature is that the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis. Currently there are 17 community-based police programs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), but what most people don’t know is that Toronto’s community policing started in Regent Park in May of 2017. We know this because the original officers involved in setting up the Regent Park community policing program continue to work here today. The officers are PC Mircea Biga, PC Farzad Ghotbi, and PC Edward Parks; the newest officer assigned to the Regent Park community is PC Nigel Thomas (who is replacing PC Melissa Huntley while she is on maternity leave). Symptomatic of the increasing diversity...
Read more