Chandigarh, October 15
The Indian-Canadian community, which is less than 3 per cent of the total population of Canada, has scripted yet another political success story by sending nine of its representatives to Canadian Parliament, House of Commons, in the general elections held yesterday.
In the last House, eight represented the Indian-Canadian community. The only one to lose this time is Rahim Jaffer (Conservative) from Edmonton Strathcona. Two new MPs will be Tim Uppal and Devinder Shory, both from the Conservatives and from Alberta province.
Three-time MP Jaffer lost by around 450 votes to his NDP opponent Linda Duncan.
Incidentally, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario will have their three Indian-Canadian community representatives each in the 40th House of Commons. Five of them have been elected on the Liberals ticket and the remaining four belong to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.
The successful Indian-Canadian candidates are Gurbax Malhi, Navdeep Bains and Ruby Dhalla, all from Ontario and Liberals, Ujjal Dosanjh and Sukh Dhaliwal (Liberals) and Nina Grewal (Conservatives) (all from British Columbia), Deepak Obhrai, Tim Uppal and Devinder Shory (all from Conservatives and Alberta).
For Nina Grewal, who has been the first Indian-Canadian woman to be elected to House of Commons, the media predicted a tough contest this time. However, she won with a comfortable margin of more than 8,900 votes against a former British Columbia cabinet minister. Her husband Gurmant Grewal has remained MP three terms. Thus, the Grewals become the first couple to have been elected MPs for three terms.
Gurbax Malhi has been elected for the sixth time since 1993 while for Deepak Obhrai, it will be his fifth term as MP. Ujjal Dosanjh, Nina Grewal, Ruby Dhalla and Navdeep Bains have been elected for the third successive time.
The Indian-Canadian community had put up 30 candidates. None representing New Democratic Party could make to the House this time. Among
the unsuccessful NDP candidates are Parm Gill, Karamjit Pandher, Jagtar Shergill, Jashwant Singh Puniya, Anita Aggarwal, Mani Singh and Bonnie Rai.
Though Conservatives had Indian-Canadians on its list, its candidate Troy D’Souza Equimalt Juan de Fuca lost by only 64 votes to his Liberal opponent and in Newton-North Delta and Sandeep Pandher lost to Sukh Dhaliwal by a little more than 1,000 votes. Former Miss India-Canada Melissa Bhagat finished a poor second. Even former British Columbia premier Dosanjh had a narrow win over his Conservative opponent Wai Young of the Chinese origin.
Though Canada will have its third minority government since 2004 and the second successive Conservative government, it faces an uphill task in keeping its economy together in the midst of financial meltdown. Conservatives have garnered 143 of 308 seats in the House while Liberals will have 76 members, Bloc Quebecois 50 and New Democratic Party 37. There will be two Independents.
