Toronto: Seventeen Indo-Canadians, including NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan have won in Canada’s parliamentary elections Tuesday. Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has returned to power in the snap polls.
The Canadians gave 49-year-old Trudeau’s Liberal Party a victory in Monday’s parliamentary elections. However, his gamble to win a majority of seats failed and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago.
The Liberals won the most seats of any party. Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or elected in 156 seats — one less than they won in 2019. However, the party was 14 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons, according to Canadian media reports. This is Trudeau’s third federal election win, but his critics say the poll was a waste of time.
The Conservatives have held onto their main opposition status and are expected to win about 122 seats, BBC reported.
All three Indo-Canadian ministers – Harjit Sajjan, Anita Anand and Bardish Chagger – in the dissolved Cabinet emerged victorious. So did 42-year-old New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh from Burnaby South.
Jagmeet won by nearly 40 per cent vote share. “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 and when people were struggling and worried about their future. We were there for you,” Jagmeet said in his speech late Monday night.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan was re-elected from Vancouver-South, with nearly 49 per cent of the vote share, drawing even more votes than his last decisive victory.
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, said a report. “My community knows me,” Sajjan 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,” Sajjan added.
The Liberals’ Anand was declared the winner in Oakville with a nearly 46 per cent vote share; a significant development for Canada’s vaccine minister. Anand was a rookie MP after winning in 2019 when she was appointed, ‘City News Toronto’ reported.
“I’m just ecstatic,” Anand said. She thanked the volunteers who had worked ‘extremely hard as a team for five weeks straight’, she was quoted as saying by the ‘Oakville News’. In her role as former Minister of Public Services and Procurement, 54-year-old 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 per cent vote share. “This is a tremendous community to be able to represent,” 41-year-old Chagger was quoted as saying by the CTV News.
Among other winners from the Liberal Party are Kamal Khera from Brampton West (55 per cent), Ruby Sahota from Brampton North (54 per cent), Sonia Sidhu from Brampton South (50 per cent), Maninder Sidhu from Brampton East (55 per cent) and Sukh Dhaliwal from Surrey-Newton (54 per cent).
Meanwhile, among the Conservative Party, Tim Uppal from Edmonton Mill Woods (38 per cent) and Jasraj Singh Hallan from Calgary Forest Lawn seat (44 per cent) 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.
