The worst flood situation in the four provinces of Pakistan has forced thousands of people to leave their homes and move to safer places. As usual in this tough time, immigrants and various associations also got busy in collecting donations for the flood victims around the world.
In our British Columbia, this campaign was started with various associations, Masajids, Islamic Centers, South Asians, Radio thons, at privates’ level and in NGOs fundraising dinners to collect donations and still it is going on.
The participants of this campaign volunteered day and night to make this campaign a success and on the other hand not only Canadians of Pakistani origin and Punjabi communities came forward and other local communities also contributed to it.
It is a perfect example of human compassion and love and it is under-appreciated. May Allah bless all the participants who worked day and night to collect donations, and the donors who donated generously for the love of humanity and for the sake of Allah, grant His mercy and grace. Do it. Ameen. We know that those who collect money have fulfilled their duty with tireless efforts. Now by their hard work and the full account of the money received (might be few pledges are not yet collected) should be sent to the victim’s people as early as possible.
Now charity donors have the right to ask the transparency of the proper use of this collected public money. The community has the right to know exactly how much money has been collected by all communities’ members and delivered to whom in Pakistan for what projects and where it is being used.
It is the duty of every institution, association, and private people to publish a regular written account of the amount collected on its website and provide a copy to the local Medias. Trust will also be established in the participating associations and in the future, if such a need ever arises in any part of the world, the community will participate even more actively than before.
BC’s Civic election has been completed
The BC Civic elections were also completed on October 15 and all the results must have been known to all of you. In major cities there was a very upset at Mayor seats. From the Muslim community Mr. Bilal Cheema of “Sri First” has received almost 22,000 votes. No doubt, this is the result of Bilal Cheema’s day and night community service and tireless hard work, and it is good news for the community. Our other Muslim candidate Ms. Zubeen Sahib also got 6635 votes from “United Surrey” slate.
However, for the Muslim community, this is a place to think about how much we have supported our candidates. And why we could not get even one seat.
Now all of us should make a plan of action together so that the mistakes that have been made this time cannot be repeated. And a path should be set that leads to success. Now we all have to think together how we can move towards improvement and make our identity possible through candidates for National and Provincial Assembly and civic elections.
Let’s start preparing now for the BC Provincial Election 2024 and Federal Election 2025. Those who want to participate should start their efforts now and make themselves active in the communities.
Miracle Media extends its heartiest congratulations to all the Mayors, Councilors and School Trustees who won in recent civic elections.
All major cities City Councils should face similar these major problems and they will handle them, let’s see.
1. Accounting
2. Changes in environment and climate
3. Housing and property taxes
4. Protection and security of common people
5. Transit
6. Public health
7. Education
8. Economic development
9. Planning for employment of citizens
10. Open door for people’s problems and questions
An important thing to keep in mind is that the turnover of civic elections is about 36 percent. It is a moment of thought. Voting is a duty and our future depends on the coming party and candidates. If all people do not use this right, then they have neglected their duty and did not think about the future. Maybe if everyone uses the vote, the coming ones will be the spokespersons of the ideas of the better people and can do the work of betterment and welfare of the people better. Voting is not only a duty but also a debt to our future generations.
What do you think? Will think for sure!!!
Laysa Lil Insana illa ma’ sa’aa
That man can have nothing but what he strives for.
What I saw, heard, and felt during my election campaign as a Mayor of Surrey?
Letter By: Prof. Kuldip Pelia
I have been following City of Surrey’s working for many years. I observed that all Surrey mayors have one-track mind, they choose a favorite issue and spend all the time of their term on that issue. Mayor Dianne Watts (2006-2011) in her first two terms concentrated on changing the look of Surrey Centre. She built brand new public library, and new city hall. During her next term (2011-2014) she concentrated on Light Rail Train (LRT) for Guildford-Surrey Centre-Newton route. Next mayor Linda Hepner also talked about LRT. In 2018 mayor Doug McCallum won the election. He changed LRT project into Surrey-Langley Skytrain extension. He also announced to change the police from RCMP to Surrey Police Service. During his term of 4 years, he remained single-minded and concentrated on police transition only. In the last 20 years no mayor tried to tackle the main issues of the common man. The main issues are:
1. Increasing affordable rental spaces
2. Reducing traffic congestion-widening roads
3. Increasing child-care spaces
4. Increasing seats in colleges and
universities
5. Improving bus service
6. Reducing the waiting time of patients in Surrey Hospital
7. Safety and security of citizens
8. Removal of delay in the issuance of permits and licenses
9. Removal of portables from schools
I felt that Surrey needs a mayor who cares about all issues. That is one reason I decided to run as mayor of Surrey 2022. Another reason was that I have been writing to BC Health Minister and TransLink about Health Care and Public Transportation issues faced by the citizens of Surrey. I also sent copies of my emails to the mayor, Councillors, MLAs, and MPs of Surrey, but no one ever answered my emails. It showed that politicians aren’t interested in people’s issues.
In July, 2022, I expressed my intention to run as an independent candidate as the mayor of Surrey. Surrey’s English Language newspaper Surrey Now Leader published the news of my candidacy on the front cover of its August 11, 2022 issue.
I started moving among people of Surrey to know about their intention to vote various candidates. There were 8 mayoral candidates, with 6 of them having a slate of Council candidates. Whenever I met a person from main stream, he told me that he’ll vote for Brenda Locke. When I asked a South Asian person, I was told that he would vote for Doug McCallum. I got this idea that most people have already made up their minds.
Before starting my advertising campaign I talked to my brother-in-law in Brampton Ontario, who had run as a Concillor in 2014 municipal elections. He did a full-fledged campaign spending a whopping $70,000, but he received only 3500 votes and lost the election with a big margin. He told me that advertising has a minimal effect on the voters, most of the people make up their mind about their choice of candidate. So I decided to not do much of advertising.
The media people interviewed me along with other mayoral candidates. Main stream media highlighted only 5 high-profile candidates-Doug McCallum, Brenda Locke, Sukh Dhaliwal, Gordie Hogg, and Jinni Sims, it ignored 3 other candidates including me. Even Business Improvement Association of Downtown Surrey didn’t include 3 of us (Amrit Birring, John Walanski, and me) in the Mayoral debate held at Civic Hotel. I did attend Mayoral debates arranged by South Surrey & White Rock Chamber of Commerce, Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce, Kwantlen and Simon Fraser university students union, Surrey Board of Trade, Madina Masjid, and We Belong Surrey. Generally questions about Public Safety, Housing, Health Care, Transportation, Homelessness, Sports, and Culture were asked. I was also interviewed briefly by South Asian media like RedFm radio, ConnectFm Radio, Jaskaran Show, Omni Punjabi, and Shere Punjab radio.
I depended on my about 2,000 Facebook friends from Surrey for support. I did some online advertising through Google and Facebook. I also thought that I would get some support from the 4,500 people who had voted for me in 2018 election, when I ran as a Council candidate in Surrey.
Three mayoral candidates-Doug McCallum, Jinni Sims, and Sukh Dhaliwal spent huge amounts on advertising. Gordie Hogg started working on his campaign very late. Other candidates, including Brenda Locke did hardly any advertising.
Election Results: Brenda Locke won with a margin of 973 votes defeating incumbent Doug McCallum. 4 Councillors of Brenda Locke’s party Surrey Connect were also elected. 2 Councillors were elected each of Gordie Hogg’s Surrey First, and Doug McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition party. I received only 385 votes as voters thought I had no chance to win, so they avoided to vote for me. But overall I am happy to get the experience, and recognition by the media. I am thankful to Mr. Naseer Pirzada, editor of Miracle who supported me by publishing my views in his newspaper.
After the election
Mayor-elect Brenda Locke’s only agenda is to revert the police transition back to RCMP. I don’t think she would do anything else for the people of Surrey in the next 4 years. The Council would be a dysfunctional one as many decisions would be made by 5-4 margin (Brenda Locke and her 4 Councillors Vs 4 other Councillors).
From: Chief Instructor, Surrey Community College
Email: kuldip@SurreyCommunityCollege.com
