Pablo Rodriguez (left) is the country's only Hispanic Canadian MP.

The Argentine-born Liberal member for Honoré-Mercier in Montreal doesn’t remember what he voted on, but he does remember what he was wearing.

“I had my official Argentina jersey on, sent by the Embassy of Argentina,” says Rodríguez.

The long-time soccer fanatic was in high spirits because, on this particular day, the team representing his country of birth faced the Netherlands in the World Cup.

Rodríguez is the sole Hispanic-Canadian MP in Parliament and one of less than a handful ever elected to the House of Commons. Hispanic Canadians were also elected as city councillors for the first time in the last Toronto and Montreal municipal elections — cities that have long been hubs for Hispanic Canadians.

Collectively, the country’s few Hispanic-Canadian elected officials feel an added responsibility because they are the only representatives for the Hispanic community amongst their colleagues.

“I’m seen or perceived here in Montreal as the MP for the Latino community, so I’m getting a lot of people coming to my riding for help on different files ... they’re more comfortable talking to someone in their own language,” says Rodríguez.

César Palacio is having the same experience.

“At least 25 per cent of my work comes from Hispanics from all over the province,” says the first Hispanic Canadian elected to Toronto city council in 2006. He gets requests to deal with “whatever you can think of,” including property tax assessments, immigration cases, and employment assistance, for Hispanics living outside his ward.

What about the Hispanic vote?

Officially, Hispanics make up about one per cent of Canada’s population, or about 300,000 people, but Palacio estimates that when those without citizenship are added into the mix, this number ranges between 600,000 and one million. Look south of the border and that number balloons, with Hispanics counting for more than 15 per cent of the U.S. population, or 45.4 million people.

However, population size doesn’t explain why so few Hispanics get elected to public office in Canada, says Rodríguez. “It has to be something else that explains it because there are [ethnic] communities where there are fewer people and better represented.”

One reason might be because Hispanic Canadians are spread out across the country, mainly in major urban centres such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa. Within those cities, the Hispanic community is further scattered.

This is unlike Canada’s Chinese and South Asian communities, whose populations are more geographically concentrated. For example, the Sikh community is about the same size as Canada’s Hispanic community, but has five MPs in the House of Commons.

César Palacio is Toronto's first Hispanic city councillor.

These communities, because of their concentrated populations, constitute a significant amount of votes in specific ridings, which may also be why Canadian politicians don’t court the Hispanic vote as much as other cultural groups such as the Chinese and South Asian communities.

That’s in stark contrast to the role Hispanic Americans played during the 2008 presidential election. Throughout the campaign, presidential hopefuls met with Hispanic leaders, candidates produced Spanish-language campaign commercials, and campaign signs read “Latinos for Obama,” or “Estamos unidos con McCain,” (We’re united with McCain).

“There is a sense of consciousness now that there is a need to be able to get what we deserve as taxpayers, somehow we have to have an agenda that represents the whole community,” says Palacio of the influence Hispanic Americans had on the presidential election and the impact this has on Canadians.

“We don’t have a strong issue that makes us different,” says Ramón Sepúlveda, former president of the Ottawa Chilean Association. “Language is not enough.”

Sepúlveda, who emigrated to Canada from Chile in 1974 after the military overthrew his country’s socialist government, says human rights abuses in Latin America galvanized the Hispanic community in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It was a rallying point they used to call on the Canadian government to denounce the countries in question, including Chile, Argentina and El Salvador.

Nowadays, both Palacio and Rodríguez say while recognition of academic and professional credentials as well as family re-unification are issues that resonate highly with the Hispanic community, these issues aren't unique to their community.

Unity is a challenge

The fact that Hispanic Canadians have roots in 19 different countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean also makes it difficult to organize politically, says Palacio, a descendant of two former Ecuadorean presidents.

“There are a lot of things that we have in common. But on the other hand, there is a sense of parochialism, a sense of division between, and even within, countries,” he says. “Different groups, different organizations, they are trying to promote who we are, but in different ways perhaps. And sometimes that creates a little bit of friction.”

This has made it difficult to organize Hispanics as a whole, says Palacio.

For example, on Thursday, Palacio tabled a motion to declare April Hispanic Heritage Month in Toronto. The motion passed, but prior to its tabling, there was much debate amongst the city’s Hispanic groups over details such as the name. “It’s a classic example of some differences, but reconcilable differences,” says Palacio, adding that these kinds of debates are healthy.

That didn't stop either Palacio or Rodríguez from getting elected. In fact, they represent two of the most multicultural neighbourhoods in the country, where Hispanics are just one of many cultural groups. As a result, Palacio says he couldn’t run his campaign based only on his Hispanic roots. “My approach was that to be elected I have to appeal to all and I have to represent the interests of everybody.”

Related Links Statistics Canada: Latin American portrait Canadian Hispanic Congress