TORONTO – For the first time -Five Indo-Canadians have made it to the Ontario provincial assembly, increasing their count by one from last time in last Thursday’s one-seat shy majority by the Dalton McGuinty led Liberals in the 107 seat house.
Four of the MPPs-Harinder Takhar, Amrit Mangat, Vic Dhillon and Dipika Damerla-belong to the ruling Liberal party, while the fifth, Jagmeet Singh, represents the New Democratic Party (NDP).
In the ridings (electoral districts) of Bramalea Gore-Malton, Mississauga Brampton South ,Brampton Springdale and Brampton West, ethnicity was not an issue as the main contest was between Punjabi candidates.
Liberal Takhar, who was seeking re-election from Mississauga-Erindale, retained the seat by a margin of about 4,258 votes. He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in October 2003, and went on to become Ontario’s first cabinet minister of Sikh-Indo-Canadian descent
Dhillon’s campaign focused on door-to-door visits covering two-thirds of the vast Brampton West riding, the largest in the province. His team dropped 10,000 flyers in the last two days of the campaign. We didn’t take any vote for granted, said Omar Khan, Dhillon’s campaign manager.
Another Indo-Canadian Liberal, Dr. Kuldip S Kular, who was a two-time winner, was halted this time by the NDP’s Jagmit Singh in Bramalea-GoreMalton. Singh had contested the federal elections in May and lost by just 500 votes. He received 19,000 votes.
Another Liberal, Amrit Mangat, who was elected in 2007 from the Mississauga-Brampton South riding, retained her seat by a margin of about 5,294 votes. Flushed by her success, Mangat promised her constituents that she would continue to provide quality jobs, education and healthcare. She had defeated PC candidate Ravi Singh in Queen’s Park in 2007, becoming Ontario’s first woman MLA of Sikh-Indo-Canadian descent.
The Liberals had also fielded another Indo-Canadian, Dipika Damerla, from the Mississauga-Cooksville riding. Damerla was a senior policy adviser to Ontario’s minister of economic development and trade.
Almost twenty other prominent Indo-Canadian candidates fielded by PC party & NDP including Sanjeev Maingi , Pam Hundal ,Amarjeet Gill , Vic Gupta , Karm Singh, Rita Jethi ,Varind Sharma, Dalbir Kathuria were defeated.
In Indo-Canadian dominated Brampton and Mississauga ridings, it’s impossible for a non-ethnic candidate to win a nomination now. In such a tight-knit community, the nomination process works in favour of Punjabi-Canadians with political aspirations. They sign up as many friends and family members as they need for memberships, pay the fee so that they can vote, and eventually win the nominations, says political analyst Gurmant Singh.
