At ceremonies across the country Wednesday, Canada's newest citizens celebrated the nation's birthday by pledging to accept the rights and responsibilities some of their neighbours may well take for granted.
At a citizenship ceremony at the legislature, MP Mike Lake was on hand, paying special attention not only to the newcomers' collective words, but to individual voices.
For while they recited their oaths in unison and in a common language, their pronunciations were enriched with the tones of India, Africa and other far-off lands.
"It's in English, but you've got all of these different accents," said Lake, who has been the Conservative MP for Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont since 2006.
"And you can pick out a whole bunch of different (ones), even if it's the same volume. It's quite emotional. These are people who are specifically choosing to become citizens of Canada."
In a riding where immigrants and refugees make up almost 30 per cent of the population, Lake, perhaps more than many MPs, has had to tackle head-on the issues newcomers face once they've taken their citizenship certificates home.
He has developed a strong reputation for helping newcomers and taking extra steps for those most in need.
"I'm really proud of our country and I always have been," says Lake, whose own family history in Canada stretches back so far he can't pinpoint exactly when his ancestors arrived here. "And I want people's experiences with Canada to be a good experience, and what we do in our office plays a part in people's experiences of our country."
Lake admits the sheer number of newcomers in his riding has meant he's had to develop expertise in navigating the immigration system. It's been a steep learning curve, and sometimes a delicate balancing act to determine exactly which cases deserve extraordinary attention.
"Any time you have a system that big, there are going to be times when the system is not going to function the way it should," he says.
"We have, in Canada, the most generous immigration system in the world. Understandably, there's a reason for all of the checks and balances we have, but it's important for me, as an MP, to balance the limited resources I have with the ability to recognize when someone is being affected by a blockage in the system that's really negatively affecting their family."
Take the case of Joseph Largao and Gbassay Konneh. The Edmonton couple was granted refugee status in 2005, years after they had arrived at a refugee camp for amputees in Sierra Leone.
The couple struggled for years to bring their young son, Quenty, to Canada, after a series of mistakes and a tangled bureaucracy had left him in the care of an aunt in the West African country.
The couple had been relying on advice from volunteers at the small Newfoundland church that sponsored them. When Lake heard the Mill Wood couple's story, he invited them to a meeting.
"(The church)tried their very best, but it was very hard," Largao says. "When I met Mike, it was very exciting. These are people in authority, and they can really help develop the country and the province."
The boy was granted a visitor's visa and was reunited with his family in February.
Lake credits his staff for working "tremendously hard" to contact the right officials to help the family's case. The MP goes without a legislative assistant in Ottawa so he can employ three people at his busy Edmonton constituency office.
"You look at a situation, you have to measure it and say, 'I have to get involved in this one. We have to see what we can do,' " he says.
Immigrants often retain close ties to their home countries, and it can be difficult for them to navigate the bureaucracy that governs how they might bring loved ones to Canada for a visit or to stay.
The most common request Lake receives is from Canadians wanting temporary visas for relatives to visit for a special occasion. Lake and his staff help people focus on questions that immigration officers need answered. In exceptional circumstances, he can help ensure officials look at an application in a timely manner.
For Varinder Grewal, an immigrant from India, Lake helped navigate the process of bringing a Punjabi-speaking live-in caregiver to Canada to help his 28-year-old daughter, who has a mental disability.
Though it took more than a year for the caregiver to arrive in Canada, Grewal was grateful.
"Whatever power he had, with whatever limits he had, he helped me," says Grewal. "My daughter is very happy. It's been especially good for my wife, because she's been taking care of her almost all of her life."
Lake knew before his election that immigration issues have long been a top concern in the riding. His predecessor, longtime MP David Kilgour, had a reputation for helping immigrants and refugees.
"You're judged by newcomer communities on how hard you try," says Kilgour, now retired from federal politics.
For Lake, working with immigrant communities has opened him to conversations he thinks all Canadians should have--where has your neighbour come from? It doesn't matter if that neighbour's family arrived in Canada in the last year or the last century, Lake says. He admits that before becoming an MP, he didn't necessarily realize just how many stories existed in his community.
"We have a real opportunity to travel the world without leaving your neighbourhood," he says. "What builds communities is getting to know each other. And that's a real key to the unique nature of Mill Woods and the unique opportunities that come with living there." © Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
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