March 14, 2025 – When Mark Carnet was sworn in as Canada’s 24th Prime Minister on March 14, his new slimmed-down Cabinet of 23, (compared to Justine Trudeau’s former cabinet of 37) included Rechie Valdez as Government Whip.
Valdez of Filipino descent, is MP for for Mississauga—Streetsville and was Minister of Small Business in PM Justin Trudeau’s government. She was elected MP in 2021.
A government whip works to ensure that the number of party members in the legislature or at committee meetings is adequate to win a vote if one is called.The role of whips is largely to ensure that MPs vote as required by the party leadership, i.e. to secure the government's business, and to protect the prime minister. Traditionally serving as assistant leaders, whips are mainly responsible for counting heads and rounding up party members for votes and quorum calls, and they occasionally stand in for the majority or minority leaders in their absence.
To the one-million-strong Filipino community in Canada, this was welcome news because it has been a long time since Filipinos in Canada had a fellow Filipino as an MP and cabinet member. Dr. Rey D. Pagtakhan served as MP for Winnipeg North from 1988 to 2004 and was Cabinet minister in the governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.
Since Pagtakhan, Canadian Filipinos had no representative in the House Of Commons until the snap election of 2021 saw the election of Rechie Valdez as MP of Mississauga—Streetsville. She is the first Canadian Filipino woman MP, and the second Filipino MP to be in Cabinet.
Valdez, 45, is a Canadian entrepreneur, television personality, and a mother of two. She was born in Zambia, Central Africa, to Filipino parents and raised in Mississauga, Toronto. Prior to her election, she had no political experience. She was a businesswoman and a professional baker specializing in cakes and pastries. She hosted her own TV show called Fearlessly Creative where she highlighted artistic and creative success stories.
Editor of Canadian Filipino Net
Eleanor R. Laquian has written four best-selling books, and co-authored four others with husband Prod Laquian. She has served in various capacities at the University of British Columbia’s Institute of Asian Research as manager of administration and programs; editor and chair, publications committee; and primary researcher of the Asian Immigration to Canada project. She has a degree in journalism from Maryknoll College in the Philippines, and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of the Philippines. She did postgraduate studies at the School of Public Communications, Boston University in the U.S.
She has been researching and writing about Filipino immigration to Canada since 1969. For her Master's degree in Public Administration at the university of the Philippines, she conducted in 1972 the first, and up to now, the only nationwide survey of Filipinos in Canada. It was done by mailed questionnaires with self addressed stamped envelopes for replies and followed up by personal in depth interviews of respondents who agreed to be interviewed, Interviews were done on a two-week drive from Ottawa to Vancouver in the summer of '72.
Her Master's thesis was published in 1973 in Ottawa by the United Council of Filipino Associations in Canada. It was titled A Study of Filipino Immigrants in Canada, 1962 - 1972. As the primary researcher of UBC Institute of Asian Research immigration Project, she edited in 1998 a book titled The Silent Debate: Asian Immigration and Racism in Canada published by UBC. In 2005 she co-authored with her husband a book to update her MA thesis and titled it Seeking a Better Life Abroad: A Study of Filipinos in Canada 1957 - 2007. It was published in 2008 by Anvil Publishing in Manila.In 2023 she edited Indomitable Canadian Filipinos, a book on the 70-year history of Filipinos in Canada, published by Friesen Press in Manitoba, Canada.
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