February
10, 2007
Presenting: Maria Minna - An Italian-Canadian
Immigrant Story and a Life-Long Fight for Social Justice
Every Canadian neighbourhood is officially represented at three
different levels: the municipal, provincial and federal levels.
As far as the Beach neighbourhood is concerned I had already had
a chance to get to know the municipal representative, City Councillor
and Deputy Mayor Sandra Bussin,
and the Provincial Member of Parliament, Michael
Prue. I was really looking forward to meeting the Federal Member
of Parliament for the Beaches / East York Riding: Maria
Minna.
Maria and I met in a small local Chinese restaurant called the
Honeybee. This restaurant, located right across from the Beaches
Library, has been around forever, and on this Saturday afternoon
we sat down for a nice late lunch. Maria started to tell me about
her background and disclosed that she was born in a small town called
Pofi not far from Rome. She spent the first nine years of her life
in Italy and grew up on a farm. She refers to her childhood as privileged,
since she grew up with holistic food, such as home-grown grapes,
fruits and cherries. Her parents were also raising chicken, rabbits
and pigs for their family’s needs. Maria used to go to school
for a half day, and would do chores in the afternoon. Her parents
would take wheat to the mill and come back with bags of whole wheat
flour. Even after many years in Canada, Maria’s mother would
never buy canned or frozen vegetables.
In 1957 Maria arrived at 9 years of age at Pier
21 in Halifax together with her mother and siblings. None of
them spoke any English. Her father had already been in Canada. A
little anecdote from Maria’s arrival in Canada illustrates
the initial culture shock: on the train to Toronto her mother wanted
to buy some bread for her children, but was only offered white Wonderbread
type of bread. Her mom had a look at the loaf and said “This
is not bread.” Until the end of her mother’s days, white
bread was only good for toast.
Maria at the Honey-Bee Chinese Restaurant
After two days and nights on the train through the snow her mother
was wondering where her father had taken them. Maria admitted that
the first few years were tough: she did not speak any English, and
had to leave her friends in Italy behind. Her dog was also left
behind and died of heart break. At the beginning she had difficulty
in school because she did not speak any English. She was put a year
back in school, had to learn only basic math and had to write in
a pencil again. In Italy she had already been writing with a fountain
pen. In grade four she finally skipped a grade and recouped one
year. Her mother was illiterate and worked in a factory while her
father worked in construction. This was a time when there were very
few health and safety standards for workers, particularly immigrant
workers. Italian children were regularly streamed into vocational
schools with lower academic standards. Even as recently as 1987
only 7 % of Italian children went to university.
Maria enlightened me a bit more about the fate of Italian immigrants
years ago. During the war many Italian-Canadian men were arrested
and detained at the Petawawa military camp. Although they were Canadian
citizens their property was often sold for one or two dollars. Italians
were declared enemy aliens and fingerprinted. When Maria arrived,
some of the earlier Italian immigrants did not want to deal with
the new arrivals; they wanted to blend into Canadian society and
not get noticed. Italian men and women were often exploited, and
their health was put in danger as they often had to work in inhumane
conditions.
When the Toronto subway was built there was a major accident at
an area called Hogs Hollow, just south of York Mills Road. Maria
explained that five Italian men were buried alive under the Don
River. The city person in charge had no idea of construction. Many
Italian immigrants worked in jobs that required heavy physical labour
and were at a high risk of injury. When they experienced an accident,
Workers Compensation would treat them like a piece of meat, and
compensate them according to the “meat chart” (they
would not receive benefits based on the severity of their disability).
Many men suffered a broken back and would be diagnosed with “degenerated
disk disease”, a diagnosis that would minimize their claim
entitlements, and they were simply encouraged to get a light job.
A tough immigrant story unfolded during Maria’s first few
years in Canada: she went to a Catholic Elementary school and her
brother had a learning disability, and started to work at age 16.
Maria on the other hand took a commercial course at age 18, having
worked part time through high school, So Maria started to work as
a secretary and helped to pay for her sisters’ education and
even paid off one of her parent’s mortgages on the family
home.
Dropping by at a store called Latitude for Living
Maria
added that she has always had to carry several responsibilities
at the same time. Ever since her parents came to Canada Maria had
to become their interpreter and the administrator of family affairs
once she had command of the English language. She also helped her
parents and other immigrant neighbours with their income tax returns
and generally managed the family’s affairs. Up until the recent
deaths of both her parents, Maria was overseeing their responsibilities,
and when she was giving her father’s eulogy in February of
2006 she realized that now her job was actually done. This funeral
was going to be the last responsibility that she had to handle on
behalf of her parents. From age ten onwards Maria had been shouldering
many family responsibilities including starting dinner, making lunch
for her dad and brother, stripping floors and doing housework. In
retrospect she says that she never really had a childhood; she does
not recall ever really having play time as a child in Canada.
To earn more money Maria also did modeling for three years from
age 19 to 22. She quit her secretary job since she realized that
modeling was more lucrative. This helped her pay her parents’
mortgage off more quickly and allowed her to save money for university.
She could achieve these financial goals much faster as a model.
At age 24 she finally started her academic studies: she enrolled
in a sociology program at the University of Toronto in 1972, so
began her fight for social justice. Early on she got involved in
municipal issues. She noticed that the Annex neighbourhood had more
infrastructure funding from the municipal government while her neighbourhood
in the west end near Ossington and Christie, a mostly immigrant
neighbourhood, received very few municipal projects. Maria explained
that the people in her neighbourhood never asked for any money to
get their streets fixed; they were actually under the impression
that their taxes would go up if they asked for more resources from
the city, so they never even tried.
Always interested in social justice issues, Maria got involved as
a volunteer and community activist. She felt that immigrant communities
were being treated differently and action was needed. In 1974 she
was offered to work on a special project at a local organization
named COSTI Immigrant
Services, which today is a community-based multicultural agency
providing employment, educational, settlement and social services
to all immigrant communities, new Canadians and individuals in need
of assistance.
A visit to Kids at Home on Queen Street East
More than 30 years ago Maria was hired as part of a summer program
to establish a women’s centre specifically targeted at Italian
women in the Jane and Finch area. A federal election was being run
right around that time, and Maria got a call from Paul Hellyer,
a Conservative politician who was formerly a Liberal, to help him
with the federal election. Maria did not want to work with this
individual and said “If I do this kind of work I’ll
do it for free for a Liberal candidate”. So she called Aideen
Nicholson, a Liberal candidate, but did not get a call back. A few
days later Aideen showed up at her door and said “we need
you”.
Maria was helping former Prime Minister Trudeau with his campaign
when he was coming through local Toronto neighbourhoods to canvass
door to door. She would go ahead of him and get people’s names
and introduce them to the Prime Minister. At the end of the election
she accepted a job with the new Member of Parliament, Aideen Nicholson.
This was right about the time when she was headed into her third
year at U of T.
Her job was to look after people’s problems, help them with
immigration issues and Workers Compensation. Maria got involved
with the Liberals and turned out to be a good campaign manager.
After graduating from her sociology degree Maria started consulting
in public policy and management. She continued volunteering for
COSTI and in 1981 she was elected as President of the Board of Directors.
From 1974 to 1992 Maria volunteered with COSTI Immigrant Services
and was the President of COSTI’s Board of Directors for 11.5
years. Maria’s interest in multicultural issues has always
been strong, and Maria lobbied hard for the Canada Multiculturalism
Act, a piece of legislation for the preservation and enhancement
of multiculturalism in Canada.
With the help of the Women’s Legal Education Fund Maria
helped launch a Charter challenge on behalf of immigrant women.
They were not given English as a Second Language training simply
because they were women, and the expectation was that they were
going to take on only menial jobs anyways. Maria added that in effect
these policies were shutting women up. As a result she launched
a challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights in 1986 for group
discrimination and won. From that point forward immigrant women
became eligible for English as a Second Language training programs.
Maria fought numerous wars on behalf of immigrants and refers to
herself as a “shit disturber”.
Maria with Barbara DeAngelis and Tamsin Salter at Pippins
Tea Company Inc.
In 1992 she was elected as the President of the National Congress
of Italian Canadians, a duty which she gladly accepted. A year later,
Jean Chretien asked her to run in the Federal Election and Maria
agreed. It was weird seeing her name on a brochure. Maria hated
asking people for money or to vote for her; this simply felt awkward
to her. But then she thought the only way to fight for people would
be to get elected, so she accepted a necessary evil.
Once in parliament she pushed hard for a national child care policy,
and the Child Tax Credit. She was part of the humorously nicknamed
“Tax the Rich Committee” which instituted the National
Child Benefit for low-income families. Maria often visits schools
and talks to children about governance. One child pointed out that
this money helped his mother buy milk and food.
Maria Minna
has strong opinions: she supports a public health care system 100%
and will never accept a hybrid system. She feels it’s a slippery
slope once you start privatizing a certain part of the health care
system. Some time ago she was hosting a delegation of Italian politicians
who could not believe that wealthy people and regular or even low-income
Canadians would go to the same doctors and sit in the same waiting
rooms together.
In her Beaches – East York riding, some of the achievements
that Maria has provided for the area include the Main Square Community
Recreation Centre, which included $5 million of federal funds that
were matched by the city. In addition, Maria obtained federal funding
for a series of overflow waste water retainer tanks along the Boardwalk
which were part of a federal infrastructure investment program.
In total Maria has brought about $25 million of federal funding
into her riding.
The life of a politician can be surprisingly tough: Maria spends
Monday to Thursday or sometimes Monday to Friday in Ottawa, in the
House of Commons, attending committee and caucus meetings. For the
weekends she returns to Toronto to attend weekend events in her
riding and to interact with her constituents. She explained that
her job has no downtime - you are on call 24 hours 7 days a week.
She continued that there is no point getting into politics if you
are not willing to accept this schedule.
As far as Canada’s political system is concerned, most politicians
come from a broad variety of professions. Maria clearly expressed
that she feels that Canada is a very successful 21st century nation.
Canada has one of the most transparent electoral processes. Even
geographically close countries such as the United States and Mexico
have had persistent issues with election scandals while Canada has
not been tainted by such problems at all. Although the population
is sometimes cynical about politicians, from Maria’s experience,
the vast majority of them, regardless of party affiliation, has
good intentions. Naturally she feels very supportive of the Liberal
party, and states that in 13 years of Liberal rule, Canada changed
from a country on the verge of bankruptcy with more than 11% unemployment
into one of the most successful developed nations.
Maria with Ofra Nissani and Janette Brathwaite from the Boa
Boutique
Maria added that she feels that the long-running Liberal government
turned the country around, started to systematically lower the deficit
and the unemployment rate and created thousands of new jobs based
on building a strong infrastructure and making investments in the
nation. An Innovation Fund was established for new technologies
and to create 1000 chairs of research at universities throughout
Canada. Centres for Health Research were created to invest in people
and their health. Maria
expresses very clearly that you cannot just cut taxes without reinvesting
the money into the country and its people.
Unfortunately, Maria says, there was a change in government, and
when the Liberals lost the election in 2006 they handed over a very
healthy economy. She added that the new Conservative government
has proceeded to decimate the National Childcare Program, they have
cut the Innovation Fund, and she deplores that they have taken away
the mandate from the “Status of Women” in Canada since
the Conservatives feel that Canadian women already have equality,
even though they still only earn 70 cents to the dollar.
In addition to some of these serious issues we also had a chance
to discuss more everyday type of topics. One of Maria’s favourite
pastimes is to stroll along Queen Street, buy presents and cap a
nice outing off with a coffee, tea or breakfast. On a nice summer
day she likes to sit by the lake on a rock, which makes her feel
like she is on holidays. The many events that happen on Queen Street
East also entice Maria to come out, and there are a whole host of
them: School Spring Fairs, community centre festivals, church bazaars,
in addition to the big flagship events: the Beaches
Jazz Festival, the Easter Parade and the Christmas Tree Lighting.
During last year’s Yard
Sale for the Cure, Maria came out to meet some of the people
who participated and thanked them for supporting this important
cause.
Maria was also part of a recent tree planting in the Glen Stewart
Ravine that was held in honour of Bob Hunter, Toronto’s most
well-known environmentalist who passed away recently. Other initiatives
that Maria really appreciates are Movies at the Fox: free outings
to movies organized and sponsored by the Beach Rotary Club. At Christmas
there is a big party for seniors, and after a free movie all the
seniors head to St. Aidan’s Church
where Quigley’s Bar and Bistro generously sponsors a lunch
for 300 people.
Another important community organization that Maria wholeheartedly
supports is Neighbourhood
Link/Senior Link, a non-profit social service agency that provides
services primarily in east Toronto. Since 1975, with the assistance
of over 500 volunteers and 160 staff, this organization helps more
than 6500 people annually. Maria was instrumental in getting this
organization up and running by connecting Senior Link, which had
been focusing exclusively on elderly residents, with COSTI, one
of Toronto’s foremost immigrant settlement organizations.
Together these agencies were going to provide employment and job
search services. Today Neighbourhood Link has become even more comprehensive
and offers a variety of health and caregiver services, housing and
employment services as well as social recreation services. Maria
mentioned that SeniorLink’s response to the blackout in 2003
was phenomenal: they contacted more than 1000 seniors who were known
to be on oxygen, and delivered backup power generators, flashlights
and candles to them to make sure that they could stay healthy and
safe. Maria added that there are a number of great organizations
in the neighbourhood that make this community work.
During a visit to the Antik Bazaar with Sharon Iseman and Joseph
Edwards
Our lunch was finished and we headed off on one of Maria’s
favourite activities: a stroll along Queen Street to check out some
of the eclectic shops that provide a really diverse range of goods
and services. On a nice Saturday afternoon with temperatures that
had finally come up above Arctic levels, we headed east on Queen
Street from the Honeybee. The first store we popped into was Latitude
for Living, an eclectic design and home décor retail
store. Right next to Latitude is Kids at Home, a store
that features blankets, strollers, duvet covers, daybeds and many
more items needed by young families, many of whom consider the Beach
their favourite neighbourhood to relocate to.
Just a bit further east we headed into Pippins
Tea Company Inc., where we met the owner Barbara DeAngelis and
her assistant Tamsin Salter. Pippins is an old time tea shop that
carries a wide assortment of teas, tea wares, tea cuisine, kitchenware
and gifts. It reminded me a bit of an old-style drug store with
its wooden counters and canisters full of tea.
Our next stop was a funky boutique called Boa
which features colourful dresses and stylish tops. The young owner
Ofra Nissani inquired whether there was any way she could get involved
in tree planting and other environmental issues in the area, and
Maria recommended her to connect with Alex
Winch, a big environmentalist in the Beach.
Maria’s time was running out since she had to head back to
her constituency office for another meeting, but we had time for
one more stop: we popped into the Antik Bazaar where owner
Joseph Edwards was a little shy at first, but then opened up and
told us that his antiques and collectibles store was recently selected
by mystery shoppers and featured in a beautiful colour book called
“Treasures of Ontario Mystery Shoppers”. His partner
Sharon Iseman came in shortly after and we had a chance to connect
with her as well. Many of the items in this store reminded Maria
of her mother-in-law’s house, who used to be an avid collector
herself. We even briefly talked about the Beach
Hebrew Institute, and gave Sharon instructions how to get there
since as son is currently looking for a synagogue in Toronto’s
East End.
It was time to get going and I gave Maria
a quick ride to her constituency office just up the road on Danforth
Avenue. We had a good time talking about Italian culture and language,
particularly since I am considering doing an international travel
assignment to the South of Italy in the near future. The last couple
of hours had been great; I had connected with a like-minded individual
who for decades has been a strong advocate for social justice, equal
rights and protection for society’s most vulnerable, and we
had a chance to enjoy some of the lovely window-shopping opportunities
that Queen Street East offers on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Interesting ice formations along the breakwaters in the Beach
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