In Canada, Punjabis pitch for liberal immigration policies

AMRITSAR: Canada's House of Commons could have more than eight MPs of Indo-Canadian community following the 42nd Federal General Elections slated for October 19.
Total 38 Indo-Canadian candidates are in fray as compared to 23, who had contested the previous general elections in 2011. "Punjabi community, including Pakistani Punjabis, are more concerned over liberal immigration policies in Canada and are largely backing the New Democratic Party who they think would address their issues," observed independent political analyst Aridaman Singh Mahal while talking to TOI over phone from Vancouver on Monday.
He said the Conservative Party candidates were more vocal about the security, development and economic issues while targeting their Indo-Canadian vote bank in Punjabi-dominated constituencies as against leaders from Liberal Party. "There has been no opinion poll regarding victory of Indo-Canadian candidates this time, but it is believed that their number would definitely surpass the previous eight members in the House of Commons," Mahal said. Most of the Indo-Canadian community was inclined towards the New Democratic Party, hoping its leader Tom Mulcair would ensure jobs for all and better quality of life, especially for the middle class.
During the 2011 general elections, three major political outfits, including ruling Conservative Party, opposition Liberal Party and New Democratic Party, had fielded 23 Indo-Canadian candidates. Out of them eight were elected. The Indian-origin MPs in the current house include Nina Grewal, Param Gill, Bal Gosal, Tim Uppal, Devinder Shorey, Jasbir Sandhu, Deepak Oberoi and Jinny Sims while some of the well-known and established Indo-Canadian who lost the elections included Ujjal Dosanjh, Ruby Dhalla, Sukh Dhaliwal, Gurbax Malhi and Navdeep Bains.
The community was also divided over campaign styles. "Canadian style of election campaigning is more popular among young educated Canadians, who seek to know about the manifesto and issues while there were many who still like the Punjabi way of conducting campaigns over dinner parties," Mahal pointed out.