First Bangladesh Night hosted in Ontario parliament by the opposition leader

The first-ever Bangladesh Night has been hosted at the Ontario Provincial parliament by the leader of the opposition and Progressive Conservative Party leader Patrick Brown.

Over 100 Bangladeshi-Canadians were invited to the programme coordinated by the community organisation -- Bangladeshi Canadian, Canadian Bangladeshi or BCCB -- on Tuesday evening.

The programme started with a one-minute silence to pay respects to freedom fighters for their supreme sacrifice for which Bangladesh came into being. Homage was paid to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation.

The national anthems of Bangladesh and Canada were played, and Bangladesh national flag was hoisted alongside the Canadian one at the venue.

A short documentary titled Beautiful Bangladesh was played to introduce the country’s rich cultural heritage with the audience. A number of books including 'A Tale of Millions' and 'The Unfinished Memoirs' of Bangabandhu were presented to the hosts: leader of the opposition Brown and deputy leader Sylvia Jones.

“This is the day we all will remember. It did not happen before. The Bangladeshi community was not recognised this way. We became part of the history today,” said Rimon Mahmud, president of the BCCB.

With around 15,000 members, BCCB has become a platform for the Bangladesh community in Canada. The organisation is helping the new immigrants through mentoring, settlement and job search and also organising various community events to imbibe Bangladeshi culture into second-generation Canadian-Bangladeshis.

It played the pivotal role in coordinating the programme with the office of the leader of the opposition in Ontario Provincial Assembly or parliament.

The Liberal Party came to power in Ontario with 57 members in 107-seat Ontario Provincial Assembly while Progressive Conservative Party won 29 seats to become the opposition in 2014 elections. The New Democratic Party has 20 seats while one seat went to the Independent candidate.

Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne is the premier of Ontario.

Each of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada has its own parliament and government.

According to an unofficial estimate, some 100,000 expatriate Bangladeshis live in Canada, with 80 percent living in the province of Ontario.

BCCB identifies Bangladeshi-Canadians as the first generation or relatively elderly Bangladeshis who migrated to Canada with families, and Canadian-Bangladeshis as the second-generation Bangladeshis who are born here and have little knowledge about Bangladesh.

The organisation is trying to bring in the Bangladeshi diaspora on a single platform and trying to reach out to mainstream politics where the community can have a better say.

Deputy Opposition Leader Sylvia Jones in her brief speech welcomed the Bangladeshi community to parliament.

Opposition leader Brown said: “Bangladeshis have created a vibrant community in Toronto which I noticed attending in some of their programmes.”

“I am pleased to be able to connect with the community. This is the inaugural night, and it will be organised every year,” he said.

“This is not a time for making a political speech but one thing I can help but to mention that despite having such vibrant and large community, there is no MPP (member of provincial parliament) from the Bangladeshi community,” he said. “We will be working on that.”

"Recently, we have an MPP from Korean community," he added.

“The province of Ontario is lucky to have such a large Bangladesh community. From now on we would like to work on people-to-people contacts,” he added.

The programme ended with a short cultural soiree where young Canadian-Bangladeshis sang.