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Jagmeet, 15 other Punjab-origin candidates win Canada elections
Punjab-origin Jagmeet Singh, chief of the New Democratic Party, will again be a kingmaker as Trudeau fails to win majority
Caption:
Canada’s New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh, accompanied by his wife Gurkiran Kaur Sidhu, delivers remarks on election night in Vancouver, British Columbia REUTERS
Blurb:
Toronto
There will be a sizeable contingent of Indo-Canadians in the House of Commons as 17 candidates, 16 of them Punjabis, secured victories in the Canada elections held on Monday.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s gamble to seek a majority by calling a snap election has not paid off as his ruling Liberal Party again ended up 14 seats short of the 170-mark in the 338-member House of Commons.
The Jagmeet Singh-led New Democratic Party (NDP) will again hold the balance of power as it increased its tally from 24 to 27.
All three Indo-Canadian ministers in the dissolved cabinet emerged victorious as did Jagmeet Singh of the NDP. Defence minister Harjit Sajjan was re-elected from Vancouver South, with nearly 49% of the vote share, despite facing headwinds over issues such as a major sexual harassment crisis in the Canadian Armed Forces under his watch and a much criticised evacuation mission in Afghanistan.
Among Indo-Canadians, another high-profile minister Anita Anand, who handled the public services and procurement portfolio and was described by Trudeau as his minister for vaccines, retained her seat from the riding of Oakville, Ontario.
Also winning comfortably in the Canada elections from Waterloo in Ontario was Bardish Chagger, minister of diversity, inclusion and youth.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh - a popular figure among Indo-Canadians - was re-elected from Burnaby South, with approximately 38% of the votes cast. However, his focus may well have been on the national performance of the party he leads, as the NDP increased its vote share to 17.7% from 15.98% in 2019 but could only gain one more seat in the House of Commons, rising from 24 to 25.
It will again be the fourth-largest group there, behind Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, the principal opposition Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois, which was on course to capture 34 seats in the Canada elections.
Focus will also be on another Indo-Canadian Liberal Party winner, George Chahal, who edged out incumbent Conservative MP Jag Sahota from Calgary Skyview in Alberta. While Justin Trudeau’s ruling party was blanked in the province in 2019, this seat may well see the city councillor-turned-first-time MP possibly finding a place in the next cabinet.
Several sitting MPs from the Greater Toronto Area were re-elected, and the most prominent among them are former parliamentary secretary Kamal Khera from Brampton West, Ruby Sahota from Brampton North, Sonia Sidhu from Brampton South and Arif Virani from Parkdale-High Park.
In Metro Vancouver, veteran Sukh Dhaliwal retained his Surrey-Newton seat while Randeep Sarai won again from Surrey. Making it a hat-trick of victories from Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle in Quebec was Anju Dhillon, while emulating her feat was Chandra Arya from Nepean, near Ottawa.
