Jamil Jivani

Jamil Jivani (born October 24, 1987) is a Canadian politician, radio host, and political commentator. He is the founder of the Policing Literacy Initiative, is a co-founder of Teachers Beyond the Classroom, sat on the Premier's Council on Equality of Opportunity and was the Advocate for Community Opportunities for the Doug Ford government until 2022.

He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Conservative for the Ontario riding of Durham in a by-election held on March 4, 2024, following the resignation of former Opposition Leader Erin O'Toole.

Early life and education

Jivani was born in Toronto, Ontario. His father is Muslim and his mother, Pam, is Christian. His father is Kenyan, and was adopted and raised by a Muslim Indian family, hence the Indian surname. His mother is from the United Kingdom, and is of Scottish and Irish descent. He grew up with his two sisters, raised by their mother in the Ontario city of Brampton. Jivani also has two stepbrothers through his father side. After attending Fletcher’s Creek Senior Public School, then Mississauga's Gordon Graydon Memorial Secondary School, Jivani attended Humber College and York University. In 2013, he earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. Before attending law school, Jivani worked as a dishwasher and line cook in local Toronto area restaurants.

While a student at Yale, Jivani was Program Director of the Yale Chapter of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project and President of the Yale Black Law Students Association. He was also part of the Innovations in Policing Clinic, in which he authored a case study of police-community relations in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

At Yale, he was the best friend and a classmate of former Republican United States Senator from Ohio and Vice President of the United States, JD Vance. Jivani also interned at the office of Cory Booker, the then-mayor of Newark, and current Democratic Senior United States Senator from New Jersey. Jivani later revealed in 2020 that for a few years after law school, he was a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Career

Legal career

Following his graduation from Yale, he practiced corporate law at Torys LLP. Jivani held research and teaching appointments at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Activism

In 2013, Jivani founded the Policing Literacy Initiative (PLI), a youth-driven public education and advocacy group focused on community safety issues. Jivani stated to CBC Metro Morning that the purpose of PLI is to spotlight progressive voices among police and community groups and work with them to find common solutions. Jivani wrote an editorial for the ''National Post'' in February 2014 about his experience with Toronto Police and the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and the use of mediated conversations for citizen complaints. In April 2014, Jivani co-produced with Dan Epstein a documentary about police-community relations titled "Crisis of Distrust: Police and Community in Toronto."

Jivani was a 2013-14 Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance DiverseCity Fellow. As a Fellow, he co-founded Teachers Beyond the Classroom, which seeks to "help thousands of unemployed teachers transfer their skills to non-school employment opportunities across the Greater Toronto Area." He served on the Board of Directors of the Children's Aid Society of Toronto until 2017. On February 13, 2014, Jivani was named Yale Alumni Magazine's Newsmaker of the Week.

Between 2016 until it closed in 2018, Jivani helped run the charity organization Our Ohio Renewal, founded by JD Vance, a friend from Yale; Jivani later stated the group's work was derailed because of his cancer diagnosis.

Think Tank Fellow

In 2020, he was appointed senior fellow for Diversity and Empowerment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a conservative, libertarian think tank affiliated with the US Atlas Network. His association with the Institute ended in 2023. He later became president of the Canada Strong and Free Network, but stepped down to announce his candidacy for the Conservative nomination in Durham.

Punditry and dismissal from Bell

He has written about youth and equality issues for ''Huffington Post''. and has articles published frequently in Postmedia chains.

On September 8, 2020, Bell Media announced that Jamil Jivani would host a new weekday nightly radio talk show ''Tonight with Jamil Jivani'', from 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM. The show would air on CFRB and across the iHeart Radio Network. In February 2021, Bell Media went under a corporate restructuring within its radio division. It was announced Jamil Jivani would move to the 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM time slot and his show would be rebranded as ''The Jamil Jivani Show''.

Jivani was later fired from Bell Media, which he claimed was due to him not conforming to Black stereotypes. In August 2022, Jamil Jivani sued Bell Media for wrongful dismissal and breach of contract. Bell filed a statement of defence, claiming that Jivani was let go because he showed disdain for concerns raised by Bell management over issues such as avoiding pushing back against COVID-19 misinformation and misgendering Demi Lovato.

Political career

On December 11, 2019, the Government of Ontario appointed Jivani as the province's first Advocate for Community Opportunities. In this role, and as a Special Advisor to the Premier, Jivani opened lines of communication between communities and the government to empower community members and enabled them to increase their participation in government decision-making. Critics, such as his former mentor Neil Price, felt that Jivani used his role to criticize the communities that he was supposed to uplift. He was reappointed on April 1, but resigned on June 9 after criticizing Education Minister Stephen Lecce on social media over the closure of schools and vaccine passports during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario.

Jivani moderated the first unofficial debate during the 2022 Conservative Party of Canada leadership election where he took aim at Patrick Brown, who skipped the debate by arguing that he was manipulating diaspora politics to boost his campaign. An official working for Brown said that the party should welcome new Canadians to the party.

Member of Parliament

On April 20, 2023, Jivani announced that he would run for the Conservative nomination in Durham riding, following the resignation of Erin O'Toole. On August 20, 2023, he won the nomination race, defeating Theresa Corless, a former Durham Catholic School Board chair.

He was elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Conservative for the Ontario riding of Durham in a by-election held on March 4, 2024. Jivani's victory speech criticized "the liberal elites who run the Ontario Ministry of Education in this province". When asked by reporters, Education Minister Stephen Lecce dismissed Jivani's comments as his concern. While Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford responded to Jivani's comments by stating that while he wished the best for Jivani, Ford believed that he helped launch Jivani's career. Upon re-election on April 28, 2025 Jivani revisited his criticism of Ford during a post victory interview with the CBC, in which he dismissed Ford's political acumen and called him an "opportunist", stating that Ford "has taken the provincial conservatives and turned it into something hollow."

Political views

Jivani has been characterized as a black conservative and a leading proponent of national conservatism in Canada. He has advocated for national conservative ideas about nationalism, the role of government, and race and Canada returning to the ideals of the Reform Party. Jivani has stated that his views were shaped by his father who abandoned his family when he was in elementary school by arguing that he was trying to find male role models.

Race and culture

Jivani views U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as a trailblazer for diversity. Jivani has praised American rapper Kanye West and
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for standing up to what he sees as "cancel culture" after West was criticized for wearing a white lives matter shirt and Smith over her views about COVID-19.

In July 2020, Jivani supported the Government of Ontario decision to eliminate academic streaming in Grade 9 and most suspensions that impacted young students in the province. According to ''The Globe and Mail'', he views Black Lives Matter movement as "anti-family fringe race activists" that hate the nuclear family and capitalism and has viewed the term “systemic racism" with skepticism. Jivani has suggested that terms such as systemic criticism as well as "white privilege" has advanced critical race theory which he believes is an issue in Canada.

Crime and extremism

In March 2014, Jivani advocated for policy changes to the Toronto Police Services Board for police-community contacts and "carding." He argues that people's identity should not be the reason why they could be stopped by police. He has admitted to facing similar incidents. He is a critic of the defund the police movement arguing that they do not represent the "Black Community". However, he has advocated for criminal justice reform by admitting that police officers must treat people with respect, calling for mandating body cameras for police, and has praised then Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders for attempting to reduce Toronto Police budget.

In his book, ''Why Young Men: Rage Race and the Crisis of Identity'' he suggested that poverty and lack of "validation in mainstream society" were factors behind the cause of crime. He also added in a later interview that lack of opportunity and inadequate social services as causes behind crime. A few years later, he blamed social media. He also suggested that the hip-hop industry, which he believes is galvanizing "gangster culture" should be investigated for "the role in causing crime." Previously in 2012, when writing for the Huffington Post, Jivani criticized then-Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and then immigration minister Jason Kenney for their remarks on the cause behind Toronto shootings as demeaning. When Ford suggested "immigration law" and Kenney suggested "foreign gangsters" as caused he argued that it was similar to tactics used by the Mitt Romney and criticized then Prime Minister Stephen Harper for failing to condemn them both.

Jivani praised federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, then-Minnesota Democratic congressman Keith Ellison, University of Toronto professor of psychology, Jordan Peterson, as positive inspirations for young males to counter extremism.

Conservatism

Jivani previously described that he held liberal views for a few years after law school but grew out of those views as he grew older and considers conservatism as a form of counterculture. Even though he praised previous leader Erin O'Toole's character, he was critical of O'Toole not trying to appeal to the Conservative grassroots.

Jivani classified Quebec's Bill 96, which would provide most government and business services to be offered exclusively in French, as an example of national conservatism being implemented in Canada.

Books

Jivani contributed to the 2012 anthology, ''Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence'', In 2018, he published ''Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity.'' The book was published by HarperCollins and listed for the Toronto Book Awards in 2018.

Personal life

Jivani resides in Oshawa.
Jivani's mother is of European descent, and his father, Ismat was born in Kenya to Indian parents. Jivani has 2 siblings and is married. His father runs a restaurant in Mexico. Jivani is a Protestant.

Electoral record

References

External links

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Election website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jivani, Jamil
1987 births
Living people
Canadian founders
Conservative Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Journalists from Toronto
Yale Law School alumni
Humber College alumni
York University alumni
Black Canadian broadcasters
Black Canadian journalists
Black Canadian politicians
Lawyers from Toronto
Politicians from Toronto
Canadian people of Kenyan descent
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
21st-century members of the House of Commons of Canada
21st-century Canadian lawyers
JD Vance