Hussein Hoballah
Though he was born and raised in Canada, he still has close ties with his Lebanese origins and visits Lebanon every year or two, and so do his children.
Our interviewee also pays tribute to his Muslim background and his connections with the community, “I am very close to my religious and ethnic background… I cannot give enough credit to our Muslim, Arab and Lebanese community for everything that they have done for me. They have supported me. They have supported my father for the past thirty years… I have to credit that community and the strength of our Arab, Muslim and Lebanese community for what they have done for my family and me to get this appointment as a minister.”
The minister confirms that being appointed a minister “could not have happened if our community had been raptured. We must continue to move forward and reach as high as we possibly can… Whatever it is, it’ll come, God willing.”
Though he was born in Canada, he’s an Arabophone. He confirms that “If we don’t protect our language, beliefs and culture, and if we lose that, we will lose our ties to our homelands, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt or wherever we’re from. That also means that if we do not have those ties, we will never go back… I encourage all of us to maintain the closest and strongest ties with our ethnic backgrounds.”
The United Conservative Party of Alberta’s Minister Qassim Mohammed Amery (Mickey Amery) has made history, becoming the first minister of Lebanese origins in the province.
He’s the son of UCP’s MLA Mohammed Amery, who had six terms in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1993 to 2015.
He’s got four sisters and is married to Mrs Hiba from Beqaa’s Joub Jannine. They have three children, Mohammed, Leyla and Daniel.
He was 36 when he ran for the constituency of Calgary-Cross and won in 2019.
Amery holds a bachelor’s degree in political science, a bachelor’s degree in economics and a Juris Doctorate degree in law.
He tells us that prior to running for legislature, he had been a lawyer in Calgary, “I started my law firm in 2016, and thank God, things went on well. We now have 6 or 7 lawyers if we consider that student lawyers are lawyers. We have 5 support staff, and we’re growing in Calgary. Our specialisation is people-level law, and our specialty is serving the ethnic communities of Calgary, including non-Anglophones. We’ve had lawyers speaking Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and others so that we could help those that aren’t Anglophones or that don’t speak it well enough.”
Once I asked him about being called Mickey instead of Qassim, he said the question was “Personal and interesting, and a very good question actually. My full name is Qassim Mohammed Makki Amery. When my father came to Canada in the early 70s, he didn’t have close family members here. He came on his own. The first person to take him into his home was his uncle, who’s named Makki Awad, and he was incredibly grateful for that hosting and accommodation.
When I was born, I was named after my grandfather, whose name was Qassim Awad Amery, so I was named Qassim Mohammed Makki Amery. Most people in my hometown still closely associate the name Awad with Amery, and I am not sure what the history there is.
So it’s still a religious Arabic name, but Makki became Mickey. And obviously when you integrate into the Canadian society, a name like Makki becomes Mickey.”
Asked whether he thinks people should keep their original names, like Mohammed, Hussein and Abdulqader, he says, “I encourage all of us to maintain the closest and strongest ties with our ethnic backgrounds. We have something beautiful: the ability to look at our culture, which is incredible and has thousands of years of history. We also have the blessing of being in a country that not only allows us to practise our religious and ethnic traditions freely, but also embraces that.
My kids, Mohammed, Leyla and Daniel, have been to Lebanon almost as many times as I have. In fact, my oldest son, who’s ten years old, has been to Lebanon five times already.
I am very close to my religious and ethnic background; it defines me and because of that, I believe it gives me advantages that some people do not have. One of those advantages is that I am able to integrate between Arab and Canadian society. And you know, if I need to, I will be able to communicate with members of our Arab community and Canadian community just the same.
The country we have is incredibly unique and rich and strong; it’s something that we should value, cherish, grow and protect. I think that’s very important, and anybody who has an ability to speak more than one language gets to understand another language or to experience the diversity in this world. It is a blessing and a gift and something that we must cherish and keep going forever.
If we don’t protect our language, beliefs and culture, and if we lose that, we will lose our ties to our homelands, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt or wherever we’re from. That also means that if we do not have those ties, we will never go back.”
Today, Amery’s 40 and has been appointed by Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith as Minister of Children’s Services.
Concerning how far his ministry’s authority expands, Amery said while on the phone with us Thursday evening, “It’s the Ministry of Children’s Services, and there are two major components: number 1 is the wellbeing and care of our children – anybody under the age of 18, and the second one involves intervention if there’s a problem in the home or with the child.
This means that if a child is being abused or in an unsafe situation, or if the parents are on substance-abuse or suffer from mental-health issues, then my department would intervene to either remove the child from the home until the parents get better, or they will work with the parents, and this is the preferred strategy: to work with parents to develop a safety plan in order to help the child and the parents recover from this problem as quickly as possible.”
Asked whether or not sex education for young children seems a problem for the UCP, Minister Amery says, “No, this is beyond my ministry; it’s more about the Ministry of Education, so my ministry deals with children in care in their homes and in childcare centres. But we do not expand to the education portion of our children, so we do not have any involvement in it whatever the education curriculum in Alberta teaches our children.
I am going to tell you a personal story: When I was young, we were in the same situation; we had to make the decision whether or not we would be taught this in the school. It was a very sensitive topic, of course, because of our background, culture and religion. But what we decided was that it was important to learn from somebody who had the educational and the proper training to teach these things rather than learning it from our school friends on the playground.
Of course, there are a lot of sensitive topics, especially ones that are developing today, but I think the biggest issue right now is not whether or not we teach sex education, but whether it’s age-appropriate, so we have to make sure that what we’re teaching our children is age-appropriate for where their development is.”
- Is there Muslim/Lebanese/Arab community in your constituency in general?
Yes, absolutely, where I live, and where I am a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, we have a very, very strong community.
- How do you get along with this community in general?
I want to say that I cannot give enough credit to our Muslim, Arab and Lebanese community for everything that they have done for me. They have supported me. They have supported my father for the past thirty years. We have a very close relationship with the Muslim community of Calgary and Edmonton.
I have made a very recent Facebook post after hosting a group from the Edmonton Islamic Academy, and I want you to see the beauty in the connection between our Islamic community and the Alberta legislature and how open and welcoming and supportive they were.
Honestly I have to credit that community and the strength of our Arab, Muslim and Lebanese community for what they have done for my family and me to get this appointment as a minister.
- Do you think the Muslim, Arab and Lebanese community are well-integrated in the society?
I would believe that they are. You know, we can trace back the contribution of the Lebanese community, for example, to the 1800s here in Alberta. It is actually verifiable that the Lebanese community in small towns like Lac La Biche, which is a town north of Edmonton, were the first pioneers who came to Alberta and built a mosque there.
We then built a mosque in Edmonton, which is the second largest mosque in North America. It’s in Edmonton, and it’s called the al-Rashid Mosque. The history of the Lebanese and Arab emigration to Alberta is well-documented and has been taking place for a very, very long time.
Of course we always have this challenge of trying to integrate our newcomers who have emigrated from Lebanon, and to integrate them with the society here, and with some of our community members who have been here for generations. I think that’s an interesting example of the diversity that we have, even within our Arab communities.
- Are the Muslim, Arab and Lebanese community well-represented in the government?
I think that we can do better and that the new premier Danielle Smith recognised that we have capable and strong community leaders. Our discussion about this ministry really focused on recognising the contributions of the Arab, Muslim and Lebanese community in general throughout the history of Alberta. We’ve had very, very few Lebanese Canadian politicians and almost no senior positions in government.
I am very blessed with this appointment, and I am not trying to minimise, but I have to tell you that the biggest contribution to the decision to make me minister was the strong contribution of our community, which is a tightly-knit, very active community in Alberta.
- Are you the first Lebanese, Arab or Muslim minister in the government in the history of Alberta?
I believe that it depends on how you characterise that question because we have associate ministries and senior ministries. If you look at associate ministries, which are not full ministries, then no, I think you know there was an associate minister by the name of Muhammad Yaseen, from Pakistan.
But that’s no longer the case. The new premier does not have any associate ministries. So if we look at the eligible senior ministries, then the answer is yes.
So let’s say you are the first minister of Lebanese origins in the history of Alberta..
I believe that’s the case, yes. As I said, it was partly for some of the things that I was able to do in my time as an MLA, but largely because I had urged the premier to look at the contributions and strengths of the community and at all of the factors that we have contributed to this province; it’s time to be recognised for these efforts.
- Do you think Islamophobia exists in Alberta, like the problem we have now here in Quebec and somehow in Ontario?
I think that Islamophobia is everywhere. I think phobia is for people who are new to the country and who are diverse, different. Yes, we’ve seen some examples of that. What I will tell you, though, is that when we contrast the systems in Alberta and Quebec, I believe that Alberta has made huge steps defeating that type of Islamophobia and increasing awareness and education and recognising the contributions of Islam throughout the world and in Alberta as well.
So you know, you are always going to have people who are ignorant to some of the great things that people from outside of Canada have done, but that sentiment is becoming less and less prevalent.
- We are really suffering from that in Quebec, especially against the Muslim hijabi sisters, who can no longer teach at schools. What do you say?
This is heart-breaking to me as somebody who’s practised for a decade in law and saw injustices over and over and over again, and who dedicated his entire life to defending people that couldn’t defend themselves, especially members of the emigrant community, because that’s where my entire law-firm’s focus is. It is heart-breaking to see some of these stories developing and I am telling you this: Until I breathe my last breath, I will continue to defend our sisters and everybody else who wants to practise their beliefs without persecution and discrimination.
- As minister, do you think the Government of Alberta can do something for the sisters in Quebec?
We’re certainly in support of religious freedom; we’ve made that very clear time and time again, both to Quebec and to everywhere else. I have spoken about this issue multiple times, and I want to tell you about this interesting issue: In the past three and a half years, as a government, we have ordered a complete overhaul of the Police Act in Alberta, with an emphasis on recommendations that support and promote diversity both within our policing and throughout our general society.
We have intrigues – laws that help religious-diversity organisations improve their security and infrastructure if they have reason to believe that they are the target of violence or vandalism. We have appointed a liaison who will work with our cultural and religious communities and the police, so we started a special office that’s going to be contacting our ethnic and religious communities and taking those concerns and complaints back to the police to try and bridge that. We have removed the practice of carding, which is basically the practice of going to a group of people and asking for their IDs.
This was happening in disproportionately large numbers when it came to ethnic communities or marginalised communities that are easy to spot through religious or cultural identification. The practice of going and asking black communities and Muslim hijabi sisters, for example, for ID when they’ve done nothing wrong has been banned in this province, and so we’re continuing to do everything we can to try and remove that type or any practices that we think to be inappropriate when it comes to cultural communities in Alberta.
- Is there a way the Government of Alberta can help the Muslim sisters here in Quebec? Some provinces, including Ontario, have helped to support the appeal against Bill 21…
You’re so right, and we can include Alberta in that federal challenge as well. So we are supporting the court case that the federal government has brought forward, and we will continue to do so.
- The United Conservative Party of Alberta, is it in any way part of the Conservative Party of Canada or is it a totally different party?
Unlike the federal and the provincial NDP Parties, we have no official ties to the federal Conservative Party of Canada.
- As a minister, how can you help Lebanon? Do you have something particular in mind to help Lebanon in time of the economic crisis and suffering of the Lebanese? Can you urge your government to act?
I am going to tell you something very interesting: We will be hosting Beqaa’s MP Yassine Yassine in the next two weeks. He’s coming with the intention to improve the school system in West Beqaa and Rashaya. He’s coming to meet with me and with our education minister and we will go through some of the ideas that we are implementing here in Alberta in order to try and give them some impression of how our society operates.
The other thing I want to say is this: I know the system in Lebanon is very complicated. I actually have a fascination with how it’s operating, and I know it’s not always successful. But I do say this: The history of Lebanon can be traced back for thousands and thousands of years, and just because it goes through difficult challenges, at the end of the day, it will be here. It was here before we came around and will be here long after we are out.
We work on correspondence, education and opening our doors, here in Alberta, to politicians, members of the community and religious and political individuals. We say that the assembly is home to people; it’s open to everybody; you don’t need an appointment or special access, and you don’t have to go through any difficult security clearances. It’s open to everybody; you can come and go as you please to Alberta’s legislature.
- What would you like to say last to the community in Canada?
I want to tell anybody reading this that when we have big dreams and aspirations, they are achievable, and there’s no special formula to achieving those goals. Our strength comes in our unity, and our weakness comes in our disunity. If we continue to unite as a community and to move together as one, we will overcome any obstacle we have.
I was born here in Calgary. I went to school and to university here, and I had no expectations of ever becoming a minister in this government until I decided to run for politics, and the climb to get here was challenging, but it was not because of some special arrangement or agreement. It happened because of hard work, dedication, focus and the support of a huge community, who was standing behind me from day one, and who stood by my family for 30 years.
So today I stand in this position – thank God, to Whom I prayed. This was a blessing. But at the end of the day, it could not happen if our community were raptured, and that’s why I think that my credit goes to our community here in Alberta and anybody anywhere in this country. You know, my dad started in politics in the 1980s, when things were a lot more difficult than they are today: Acceptance was harder, language barriers and discrimination.
So we must continue to move forward and reach as high as we possibly can. Just because I’m the perfect example of that, I promise you that if we do, whatever it is, it’ll come, God willing.
*the photo is from the facebook page of minister Amery