Farheen Khan, Mississauga Centre

As the only candidate born and raised in Mississauga, Farheen has the vision, passion, and experience to fix Ottawa and stand up for our Canadian values. Coming from a long line of patriots, her family has always been at the forefront of defending our country.

Her dad worked for the Toronto Police, her grand uncle was a Staff Sergeant for the Toronto Police, and her sister was a Master Corporal in the Reserves with the Canadian Armed Forces. Now Farheen is standing up to make sure Ottawa does not go on ignoring us.

As a child of immigrants, Farheen witnessed the difficulties her parents had to go through. Their credentials were not recognized and they had to pick up odd jobs simply to make ends meet. She knows what it feels like to grow up in subsidized housing, to have to deal with poverty and food insecurity when her father fell ill. At a young age, she started working to support her family financially, so she understands firsthand the real compromises and struggles that comes with hard work and determination.

Farheen was a senior manager at a women’s shelter, a fund development consultant, and has a long history of advocating for her community.

While she has a strong record in advocating for causes related to women & girls issues, health & nutrition, fitness & wellness, poverty, food security, homelessness, youth leadership & development, the arts, international development & relief aid, and against gendered-base violence. Farheen has always been results-oriented and focused on making real changes.

She has raised over $2 million dollars for causes in Peel Region and another million for international development and relief aid. For over 5 years, she has been part of United Way of Peel’s Speakers Bureau to help with their fundraising efforts. She has published two books on her journey in overcoming adversity. She graduated from the DiverseCity Fellows, United Way of Toronto’s CITY Leaders, and Maytree Foundation’s “Leaders for Change” Program. Most recently, she was profiled in Metro News as a 2015 Agent of Change through the Centre for Social Innovation.

Why is it important to elect more women to Queen’s Park?
– Christine Scott Cheng

Women focus on different issues

On a substantive level, studies systematically show that female politicians are more likely to concentrate on issues that matter more to women such as daycare, gender equality, reproductive rights, flex time, elderly care, children’s welfare. It seems pretty intuitive that there are some issues that are more important to women and affect them more. It also seems like common sense that women would be more likely to focus on these issues than men.

One example from the US context comes from Debra Dodson’s research. She shows that the Women’s Health Initiative was only passed because women in Congress fought for it. Before this program was established, Dodson points out that the majority of medical research on heart disease was being done on men even though women were twice as susceptible to heart disease. This is but one example of many.

The problem is that there needs to be a critical mass of women to put these issues on the political agenda. Otherwise they simply become the pet projects of a small minority of legislators— never mind the fact that this “small minority” actually represents 52% of the population. Still, the under-representation of women is not a situation that is unique to Canada. There are very few countries in the world of managed to consistently elect more than 33% women to their national legislatures.

Women have different styles of governing

Not only do women politicians take an interest in different policy issues, but it has also been shown that they also govern differently. Lyn Kathlene shows that American female politicians have very different leadership styles from their male counterparts; her study on state legislature committee chairs reveals that women are generally more cooperative and emphasize consensus-building while men are more aggressive.

Women are less corrupt

A lesser-known fact about female politicians is that, at the global level, they are generally less corrupt. Two studies have found a statistically significant correlation between a higher proportion of women in government and a lower level of corruption at both the national and local level.

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With a different vision, new passion, and solid experience, Farheen Khan will fight for an economically stronger Canada, an affordable Canada, and a safer Canada…a Canada we can all be proud of again.

The Vision Gala, a fundraiser for the Khan Campaign, will provide us with the resources we require to run a stellar campaign.

The evening will include a keynote address, entertainment, raffles, an auction, and a great chance to network with like-minded individuals.This is a new riding with no incumbent to beat. Time for change is here. All that is left is to know that I can count on your support.

Can I count that I will see you at Candles Banquet Hall
(1224 Dundas St E, Mississauga) on May 22, 2015, at 6:30pm?