Well done Canada. Most Diverse Government Ever, Trudeau says 'because it's 2015'! Yaaa

New PM unveils cabinet that looks 'like Canada'

Justin Trudeau's younger, more diverse team comprises old-guard Liberal politicians and newcomers, half of them women.

Justin Trudeau has been sworn in as Canada's new prime minister, appointing a cabinet that he says looks "like Canada".
The 43-year-old Liberal party leader, who swept to power in a general election two weeks ago to end nearly a decade of Conservative rule, took the oath on Wednesday and promised big changes as he introduced a younger, more diverse cabinet.

Most of the new ministers are between the ages of 35 and 50, while half of them are women - in line with Trudeau's campaign pledge.

Asked why gender balance was important, Trudeau's response was: "Because it's 2015.

"Canadians from all across this country sent a message that it is time for real change, and I am deeply honoured by the faith they have placed in my team and me."

The new cabinet includes a mix of old-guard Liberal politicians with many newcomers.

Among them is Indian-born Harjit Sajjan, a former Canadian soldier and Afghanistan war veteran who was named as Canada's new defence minister.

He was Canada's first Sikh commanding officer and received a number of recognitions for his service, having been deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Sajjan, a lieutenant-colonel in Canada's armed forces, will oversee an anticipated change in Canada's military involvement in the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters in Syria and Iraq.

More refugees
Trudeau has said that Canada's fighter jets will withdraw from US-led air strikes against the group.

He has also promised to take in more Syrian refugees and restore Canada's reputation as a peacekeeping nation, a contrast to the more aggressive international tone under Conservative leader Stephen Harper.

"Canada tends to go back and forth from multilateral, internationalist foreign policy, to one based on what Harper called a principled approach, more pro-Israel and involved in anti-terror measures," Laura Dawson, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told Al Jazeera.

Sajjan will oversee an anticipated change in Canada's military involvement in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq [Blair Gable/Reuters]

"We'll see a switch from that in this new government."
Other newcomers in Canada's new cabinet include Bill Morneu, a Toronto businessman who was named finance minister, and Jody Wilson-Rayboud, the justice minister, who is a descendant of First Nation Canadians.
But the new faces are not just limited in Canada's cabinet.
The new parliament, which is expected to return in early December, will include 10 Muslim Canadians - the most ever - as well as 10 First Nation Canadians, also a first.
Trudeau has a busy agenda ahead, with four global conferences to attend, including the G-20 summit in Turkey and the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/canada-pm-trudeau-diverse-women-cabinet-151105062433796.html

Lot more on the video on the page which actually inspiring.  Makes me wish I lived in Canada.

Better video of the actual cabinet here:

https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/639912516150259/

Totally diverse.

Canada often leads the way in the world....but very quietly

eddie wrote:Canada often leads the way in the world....but very quietly

Yep, they just unassumingly do great things without bragging about them. Awesome country.

Yes. It's one place I'd live, if I had the choice.

They talk like the Yanks though.

Raggamuffin wrote:They talk like the Yanks though.

Not really ...

Ben_Reilly wrote:

eddie wrote:Canada often leads the way in the world....but very quietly

Yep, they just unassumingly do great things without bragging about them. Awesome country.

It's amazing.  There are apparently more sikhs in his government than in the Indian government, as well as Muslims, someone who arrived as a refugee and people who are aboriginal to Canada.

The Sikh who is the Defence Minister has an amazing background and ethos:

Among the diverse crowd are four ministers of Sikh origin — a conspicuously high number when you consider that India, where most Sikhs live, only counts two Sikhs in current senior cabinet-level positions.
Harjit Sajjan, 42, a former police officer and veteran of three military deployments to Afghanistan, is now Canada's defense minister. He swiftly became the subject of social media celebrity.

The others are Amarjeet Sohi, sworn in as Canada's minister of infrastructure; Navdeep Bains, 38, a business school professor who now has the portfolio for innovation, science and economic development; and Bardish Chagger, 35, a daughter of Sikh immigrants who was sworn in as minister of small business and tourism.
Sikhs belong to a religion that emerged at the intersection of Islam and Hinduism in South Asia in the 15th century. They comprise a small percentage of India's population, but a more considerable proportion of the Indian diaspora, particularly in Canada. Indians make up almost 4 percent of Canada's overall population; Sikhs count for around 1.5 percent.

Punjabi, the language of the Indian state that's the homeland of most Sikhs, is now effectively the third language of Canada's parliament. Nineteen Indian Canadians in total were voted into the 338-seat House of Commons in Ottawa in federal elections last month.

The ascension of figures like Sajjan and Sohi may not please all Indians, though. Sajjan is connected to the influential World Sikh Organization, a group, that despite its name, has links to the fringe, militant radicalism of the Khalistan movement — a Sikh separatist uprising that flared in India in the 1980s.

The violence at the time included the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight that killed 329 people. Inderjit Singh Reyat, a Canadian national of Sikh origin, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with the bombing in 2003 and is serving a 15-year prison sentence.

Sajjan has brushed off any link to the now subdued Khalistan cause and told CBC last year that he has "no negative vibes from anybody" in his constituency.

Sohi was born in Punjab in 1964 and grew up in a close-knit Sikh family. After moving to Canada as a teenager, he went back to India in his early 20s to work as a social activist. But he was swept up by local police in the state of Bihar amid a climate of fear and hysteria over the threat of Sikh terrorism and was imprisoned for two years without charge.

According to reports, Sohi says he was tortured and kept in solitary confinement. The Edmonton Journal has more:

Amnesty International took up his case, as did a local Edmonton interfaith coalition. Sohi says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, commonly referred to as CSIS, did as much to help free him as anyone.
CSIS investigated Sohi’s Edmonton activities, reporting to officials in India he was no threat.
But Sohi says his jailers didn’t want to lose face by admitting the big international terrorist they had captured was nothing of the sort. They made up wilder and wilder charges, accusing him of training with Muslim militants in Pakistan, then of being a Maoist agent, then of having links to the Tamil Tigers.
Then came a change of government in Bihar. The prosecutor formally requested the case be dismissed, saying “there is a lack of evidence against Mr. Sohi and also his prosecution is against public policy of the state.”
The judge agreed. On July 9, 1990, he ordered Sohi “released forthwith.”

The ordeal led to Sohi's return to Canada and formed the bedrock of his politics. It's relevant now in the context of growing Islamophobia in both Canada and the United States amid concerns over infiltration by Islamist extremists.

“Once I was mistaken for a terrorist because I was a Sikh. If we start marginalizing people here because of their faith, who does that help?" Sohi asked the Alberta newspaper. "It doesn’t help us. It probably helps [the Islamic State]."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/05/canada-just-appointed-the-worlds-most-sikh-cabinet/

Sense in the world, who'd have thought it!

Raggamuffin wrote:They talk like the Yanks though.

No, not at all.  Canadians are more influenced by a Scottish accent....Eh? and I dahuuut it Alice...  Especially down east.

Raggamuffin wrote:They talk like the Yanks though.

No, they don't; the Canadians have a "twang"

eddie wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:They talk like the Yanks though.

No, they don't; the Canadians have a "twang"

And it's a softer accent, some American accents (no insult intended) can be quite jarring.  It's a bit like the difference between the Glasgow accent and the Edinburgh accent.

sassy wrote:

eddie wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:They talk like the Yanks though.

No, they don't; the Canadians have a "twang"

And it's a softer accent, some American accents (no insult intended) can be quite jarring.  It's a bit like the difference between the Glasgow accent and the Edinburgh accent.

Yes and the Jamaican and the Bajan - the latter is really harsh and sounds almost like a Devon accent!

eddie wrote:

sassy wrote:

And it's a softer accent, some American accents (no insult intended) can be quite jarring.  It's a bit like the difference between the Glasgow accent and the Edinburgh accent.

Yes and the Jamaican and the Bajan - the latter is really harsh and sounds almost like a Devon accent!

Exactly.