FEATURE

FEATURE From immigrant to provincial adviser in 12 years

by Charlie Smith

Like many immigrants, Amir Bajehkian felt a little bit lost after moving from Iran to study physics at the University of Victoria in 2005. This sense of isolation and unfamiliarity with his new home wasn’t something he was eager to discuss at the time.

“I kept it to myself,” Bajehkian, president of Green Cedar Consulting, told the Straight by phone. “It took me a few years before I started getting involved in the affairs of the community.”

Two things happened on different sides of the world to turn Bajehkian from a bystander to a participant in public issues. Back in Iran, then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was creating “no shortage of embarrassment and drama”, he said. And here in Canada, the prime minister, Stephen Harper, was demonstrating “a lack of transparency and a total disregard for democracy”, according to Bajehkian.

In late 2008, Harper persuaded the governor general, Michaëlle Jean, to allow the prorogation of Parliament. That prevented the Liberals and NDP from forming a minority coalition government with the support of the Bloc Québécois on confidence votes.

Then in June 2009, Ahmadinejad won a tainted presidential election over his chief rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Supporters of Mousavi took to the streets, demanding the ouster of Ahmadinejad in the so-called Green Revolution.

“It was very inspiring for me,” Bajehkian said. “I could see people younger than my generation trying to hold the politicians accountable. They were ahead of whoever was trying to represent the progressive side in Iran.”

The state crushed the revolution. And after graduating from UVic, Bajehkian enrolled in the aircraft-maintenanceengineer program at the B.C. Institute of Technology, going on to become a flightdata analyst. He retained his passion for public affairs, helping John Horgan build bridges with the Farsi-speaking community after he became NDP leader in 2014. Bajehkian said that he offered to do this for other politicians before that, but Horgan was the first to take his offer seriously.

With Bajehkian’s involvement, the NDP won back North Vancouver–Lonsdale in 2017 for the first time in 26 years and retained a seat in Coquitlam—two areas with substantial Farsi-speaking communities. That helped enable Horgan to become premier even though the B.C. Liberals had won more seats. After the 2017 election, the NDP government appointed Bajehkian to the provincial Multicultural Advisory Council.

Bajehkian described Canadian multiculturalism as “great in many ways”, but he doesn’t like the way some politicians like to place diverse communities in silos.

“When I got to know some of these cultures and these communities, I found that we had a lot of shared struggles and values,” he said. “A lot of things we can learn from them and they could learn from us. We could basically connect and team up, based on those mutual values.”

While he embraces interculturalism, he’s no fan of the melting-pot concept, saying people need to remain proud of their individual identities.

This year, Bajehkian is seeking a nomination to run for the Vancouver park board with the Coalition of Progressive Electors. If he wins a seat in the October election, he’ll become the first elected politician of Persian ancestry in the Lower Mainland.

“I acknowledge that there are initiatives in our community facilities, community centres toward the immigrant population,” Bajehkian said. “But a lot of times they’re not communicated. We are waiting for them to come to us. We’ve got to go to those communities. And make sure they are our partners.” g

A desire to hold politicians accountable spurred Amir Bajehkian’s political activism.