Peter Fonseca a loyal Liberal but not an ardent advocate

Peter Fonseca regularly rises to speak in Ottawa, calling on members of the House to observe events such as Portugal Day, Portuguese Heritage Month or the anniversary of the Polish constitution.

Mississauga East–Cooksville days are less common than you might expect.

According to OpenParliament, a website that aggregates speeches by MPs in Ottawa, the Liberal incumbent has spoken in Parliament a total of 128 times. He mentioned Mississauga on 44 occasions, or a third of the time. Fonseca, who chairs the Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada and sits on the International Trade Committee, issued a further 687 comments or questions at committee level, mentioning his city 17 times.

Of the 44 times Fonseca mentioned his riding in Parliament, few were to advocate for local issues. On three occasions between 2016 and 2017, he wished the former mayor of Mississauga, Hazel McCallion, a happy birthday or congratulated her on the naming of a day in her honour. He used parliamentary time to praise tennis player Bianca Andreescu and firefighters in his riding or to mention the history of Dixie Presbyterian Church.

Fonseca is of Portugese descent. Five speeches by the MP in the House that mentioned Mississauga actually focused on Portugal. Each time, the thousands of Portugese inhabitants of the city acted as an accessory to his statements rather than the subjects of a policy suggestion.

“It [Portugal Day] is a special day of pride for me, both as a Portuguese immigrant who came over with my parents and my sister,” Fonseca told Parliament in June 2016, “and as a resident of Mississauga, a city to over 20,000 Portuguese Canadians, many of whom are my constituents in my riding of Mississauga East–Cooksville.”

The riding is home to the biggest mail-processing centre in the country, with the success of Canada Post determining many jobs. Fonseca spoke several times in Parliament about postal reform. Most recently, in February 2018, he asked for an update on his government’s reforms to the service. Fonseca asked questions at the committee level as well, including a series of detailed queries about the service’s subsidy of foreign parcels, particularly those coming from China. 

Fonseca attending the Mississauga MuslimFest event earlier this year.

However, the MP was silent when the government passed back-to-work legislation in November 2018, ending rotating postal worker strikes. Indeed, despite representing the riding with what could be the highest concentration of postal jobs in the country, Fonseca did not speak once during the debate. Instead, according to the parliamentary voting record, he voted in line with party leadership to compel Canada Post workers to end their strike action over pay and work conditions.

Fonseca’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Earlier in his term, Fonseca posed a question in the House of Commons on immigration. The 2016 census lists 67,310 of Mississauga–East Cooksville’s residents as immigrants — more than half its population. Speaking in November 2016, Fonseca criticized the previous Conservative government’s immigration system and asked the Liberal minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship what improvements the government was making.

Responding to the cue, the minster said: “We have let in more than 33,000 Syrian refugees. We have reinstated the principle that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. We have reinstated refugee health care. We have made it much easier for international students to become permanent residents. We have set up a pilot immigration program in Atlantic Canada. We are in the process of making it much faster for spouses to be reunited.”

Though the answer did not allude to any future immigration plans, Fonseca didn’t ask again. 

According to OpenParliament, 2017 was the last time he asked about the immigration system, even after the collapse of the first-come-first-served family reunification portal, which the government rolled out in January 2019. The system, which ran out of space for family-sponsored new arrivals after just 11 minutes, was widely criticized. Fonseca, despite representing the many immigrant residents of Mississauga–East Cooksville, did not publicly raise concerns.

The MP did once raise a question about the funding of Mississauga’s transit system. In May 2017, Fonseca asked what was being done to invest in the city’s transit, which he said was “in need of improvements.” The MP seemed satisfied with the response that $58 million was being sent by the federal government for new buses and bus shelters, as he did not ask about investment in Mississauga transit infrastructure again.

Of course, political action takes place in many different ways; the House of Commons is just one forum. Fonseca’s work on the International Trade Committee, for example, appears to have yielded strong business connections for Mississauga, particularly with Brazil.

“A large operation, one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Brazil, Biolab, is investing $57.4 million in Mississauga,” Fonseca told the committee in 2017. “They are opening up a plant. These are high-skilled, high-paying jobs that are coming to Mississauga. It does take time to work that market.”

Fonseca was a dependable if not proactive MP in Ottawa. A regular attendee, he voted on a host of government motions, opposition motions and private members bills. According to vote.mp, which compiles members’ voting records, Fonseca did not defy the whip, carefully treading the party line. He also sponsored no bills in the last session, according to his profile on the House of Commons Canada website.

The incumbent’s spending of taxpayer dollars increased over the past four years. In his first year, Fonseca spent just $142,754 of his parliamentary budget of $363,600. Fonseca stepped close to the line in his second year, with costs of $357,010. In his final two years, his spending outstripped the limit: $377,488 in 2017-2018 and a full $395,140 in the most recent year. Staff costs made up the majority of his budget, in addition to advertising, a secondary residence and constituency office leases.

Expenditure and travel reports paint Fonseca as something of a clockwork MP. His travel report does not reveal lavish overseas trips or innovative missions. Instead, Fonseca seems to have trotted back and forth between Mississauga and Ottawa to attend community events or vote as requested by the whip. Social media offers snapshots of the many handshakes Fonseca has shared over four years and the regular visits he has made to people in his community.

During his rookie parliamentary term, Fonseca carried his weight as a member of the Liberal caucus. He commented regularly in committees and turned up to vote and speak to important items on the agenda. His party would argue that, in his role as a loyal Liberal, he delivered important legislation such as the Canada Child Benefit that has improved people’s lives across the country. 

Those who live in Mississauga East–Cooksville with family waiting to move to Canada, who travel on MiWay transit or work in the postal service may see things differently. 

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Twitter: @isaaccallan