Canada election: 16 Punjab-origin candidates win federal polls

Sukhmeet Bhasin
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, September 21

Sixteen of 17 Indian-origin politicians who have made it to the Canadian House of Commons in the recent general elections are Punjabis.

The number of Indian-origin candidates who were reelected is marginally down from 20 in 2019.

All prominent Punjabi-Canadian faces were reelected—including Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan from Vancouver South, Minister Bardish Chaggar from Waterloo, minister Anita Anand from Oakvilla and Jagmeet Singh, who heads New Democratic Party, from Burnaby South seat.

Liberal Member of Parliament Chanderkanth Arya, who has his roots in Karnataka, was elected from Napean in Ontario yet again—the lone non-Punjabi Indian-origin MP.

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Many of these seats were from Ontario, Canada’s largest province and a hub for Indian immigrants—Punjab-origin MPs won four of five seats in Brampton: Ruby Sahota from Brampton North, Maninder Sidhu from Brampton East, Sonia Sidhu from Brampton South, and Kamal Khera from Brampton West.

Five of those who won are women: Anju Dhillon, a lawyer and a Liberal Party from Dorval-Lachine-La-Salle who became the first Indian-Canadian to win a seat twice in the French-speaking province of Quebec; her fellow Liberal candidate Ruby Sahota; Sonia Sidhu; Anita Anand; and Bardish Chaggar.

Other prominent winners are Jasraj Singh; George Chahal; Tim Uppal; Sukh Dhaliwal; and Randeep Singh Sarai.

Nineteen of 20 Indian origin MPs who’d been elected in 2019 were of Punjabi-origin.

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