17 Indo-Canadians elected MPs as Trudeau fails to win majority
Darpan News Desk IANS, 21 Sep, 2021 11:35 AM
Toronto, Sep 21 (IANS) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus gamble to seek a majority by calling a snap election has not paid off even as 17 Indo-Canadians were elected as MPs.
In the elections held on Monday, Trudeau's 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.
The main opposition Conservative Party ended up with a tally of 122 seats � one up from the dissolved House.
Among the 17 Indo-Canadian winners are Jagmeet Singh, former Minister Tim Uppal and three current Cabinet Ministers Harjit Singh Sajjan, Bardish Chagger and Anita Anand.
Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan again won from Vancouver South by beating Sukhbir Gill of the Conservative Party.
Chagger, Minister of Diversity, too retained her Waterloo seat as did Public Service Minister Anand her Oakville seat.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh also retained his Burnaby South seat in British Columbia.
In British Columbia, three-time Liberal Party MP Sukh Dhaliwal retained his Surrey-Newton seat by beating fellow Punjabi Avneet Johal of the NDP.
Two-time Liberal Party MP Randeep Singh Sarai also won the Surrey Centre seat by beating Sonia Andhi of the NDP.
In Quebec, the sitting Indo-Canadian Anju Dhillon retained her Dorval�Lachine�LaSalle seat.
In Alberta, Jasraj Singh Hallan retained the Calgary Forest Lawn seat, but his fellow Conservative MP Jag Sahota lost to fellow Sikh George Chahal of the Liberal Party.
Uppal is back once again after retaining the Edmonton Mill Woods seat for the Conservative party.
He is the brother-in-law of Congress MLA from Jalandhar Cantt, Pargat Singh.
In Ontario, the Punjabi-dominated city of Brampton again re-elected all the four sitting Indo-Canadian MPs � Maninder Sidhu, Ruby Sahota, Sonia Sidhu and Kamal Khera � against fellow Indo-Canadians Naval Bajaj, Medha Joshi, Ramandeep Brar and Gurprit Gill, respectively.
The winners belong to Trudeau's Liberal Party.
Chandra Arya too retained the Napean seat in Ontario.
Lawyer Iqwinder Gaheer, who won the Mississauga-Malton seat for the Liberal Party, will be one of the youngest MPs to go the House of Commons in Ottawa.
Sitting Conservative Party MP Bob Saroya was another known Indo-Canadian face to lose on Monday.
In total, 4,941,795 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in B.C., 1,368,464 of which are second doses.
As of 1:45 p.m. today, VPD officers had responded to more than 65 sudden deaths since the heat wave began on Friday, with more casualties being reported by the hour. Today alone, officers had responded to 20 sudden deaths as of 1:45 p.m., with more than a dozen others waiting for police to be dispatched.
Mark Sandler told a B.C. Supreme Court judge the documents obtained from HSBC include internal email chains and spreadsheets that undermine the allegations of fraud against Meng.
The agency says 851 people died between January and May, which surpasses the previous high of 704 deaths reported for those months in 2017 by almost 21 per cent.
The province will be recommending people wear masks in public indoor spaces if they are partially vaccinated or not vaccinated. No recommendation to wear a mask for those who are fully vaccinated.
Canada's chief public health officer says without vaccines the third wave of COVID-19 in Canada would have been much deadlier. Dr. Theresa Tam says as vaccines began to roll out among the most vulnerable, older populations in Canada, she was "quite struck" by how quickly infections and deaths plummeted in that age group.
