Ottawa: With Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returning to power in Canada, 17 Indo-Canadians, including NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, won the parliamentary elections last week. Although Trudeau's Liberal Party emerged victorious in the parliamentary elections, the 49-year-old failed to win a majority of seats and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago.
All three Indo-Canadian ministers - Harjit Sajjan, Anita Anand and Bardish Chagger - in the dissolved cabinet emerged victorious as did 42-year-old New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh from Burnaby South. “I want to say that Canadians know that you can count on the New Democrats to continue fighting for you. As we’ve fought for you in the pandemic when times are difficult when people were struggling when people were worried about their future. We were there for you,” Jagmeet said in his concession speech.
Jagmeet won by nearly 40% vote share. He created history by becoming the first non-white leader of a federal party in Canada in 2017. Recently, he picked up the endorsement of a fellow left-of-centre politician, US Senator and former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan was re-elected from Vancouver-South, with nearly 49% of the vote share. Sajjan was re-elected despite the cloud of misconduct allegations hanging over the Canadian Forces and the government’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan, the report added.
“My community knows me,” he said. “When we talk about things that happened 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago - obviously we’re going to take action. And now that more women are coming forward, having the confidence to come forward, yes we’re taking action.” The Liberals’ Anita Anand was declared the winner in Oakville with a nearly 46% vote share; a significant development for Canada’s vaccine minister.
Anita Anand, 54, was a rookie MP after winning in 2019 when she was appointed. She quickly became in charge of the country’s efforts to secure Covid-19 vaccines and was often on the campaign trail with Justin Trudeau.
Thanking the volunteers who had worked “extremely hard as a team for five weeks straight,” she said, "I’m just ecstatic.” In her role as former Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Anand played a very public role in the Liberal response to the health crisis.
Liberal incumbent Chagger was declared the winner of Waterloo with a 44.8% vote share. “This is a tremendous community to be able to represent,” 41-year-old Chagger was quoted as saying by the CTV News.
“This election was really about a mandate. Where do Canadians want to go? Does the environment matter? Do social programmes matter? Do infrastructure investments matter? And clearly, they do,” Chagger said.
Among other winners from the Liberal Party are Kamal Khera from Brampton West (55%), Ruby Sahota from Brampton North (54%), Sonia Sidhu from Brampton South (50%), Maninder Sidhu from Brampton East (55%), Sukh Dhaliwal from Surrey-Newton (54%).
George Chahal from Calgary Skyview in Alberta (42%), Arif Virani from Parkdale-High Park (42%), Randeep Sarai from Surrey Centre (44%), Anju Dhillon from Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle (52%), Chandra Arya from Nepean (44%), and First-time candidate Iqwinder Gaheer from Mississauga-Malton (53%).
Meanwhile, among the Conservative Party, Tim Uppal from Edmonton Mill Woods (38%) and Jasraj Singh Hallan from Calgary Forest Lawn seat (44%) have retained their seats.
Canada hosts one of the largest Indian diasporas in the world, numbering 1.6 million people, which accounts for more than three per cent of its total population.
The diaspora, whose main concentration is in the Greater Toronto Area, the Greater Vancouver area, Montreal (Quebec), Calgary (Alberta), Ottawa (Ontario) and Winnipeg (Manitoba) has done commendably well in every sector in Canada, according to the information on the website of the Indian High Commission in Canada.
