By Asia Samachar | Canada |
Bardish Chagger is one of the dozen or so Sikh candidates running in Canada’s Sept 20 federal election.
She goes into the polls no more a rookie lawmaker she was in 2015. This time around, she has under her belt of being a two-term parliamentarian and federal minister.
She has been given a ticket by the Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau who shot into prominence when his party won the elections in 2015. Prime Minister Trudeau called for the snap election in the midst of a Covid-19 pandemic just two years into a four-year mandate secured in 2019.
With some of the novelty wearing off, both Chagger and the Liberals are facing a tough battle.
“I have been involved in politics since I was 13 years old when I went with my father to install signs for Andrew Telegdi. As a young person, even before I could vote, I supported progressive policies such as same-sex marriage, advancing equality for women, and legalization of cannabis. Since that time, I have advanced policies such as a national manufacturing strategy, the removal of interest on Canada student loans and the women’s entrepreneurship strategy,” Chagger to The Record in a recent interview.
The 41-year-old was elected MP for the riding of Waterloo in 2015 and re-elected in 2019. She has served in Trudeau’s cabinet as minister of small business and tourism (2015-2018), government house leader (2016-2019), and minister of diversity and inclusion and youth (2019-2021).
In 2015 election, Chagger was one of the five Sikh women and five turbaned Sikhs among the 19 Indo-Canadians who emerged victorious. The Indo-Canadians representatives more than doubled their representation in the 338-member parliament.
Also in the running this time around is national defence minister Harjit Singh Sajjan, another easily recognisable Sikh politician in Canada. Dropping out of the show is Navdeep Singh Bains who was retained as a minister earlier on after the 2019 elections but had quit politics.
One obvious big name is Jagmeet Singh who has served as the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) since 2017. With no outright winners after the 2019 polls, Jagmeet and the NDP became the kingmakers.
Jagmeet consistently enjoys the highest net favourability ratings of any federal leader and has a record to run on after nearly four years as leader of the federal NDP, but his prospects of returning the NDP to the official Opposition status they achieved in 2011 — with most of that caucus based in Quebec — appear a long way off from the fourth-party spot they have now, according to a recent report in Toronto Star.
RELATED STORY:
Jagmeet, Harjit Sajjan and some Sikh candidates who won in Canadian elections (Asia Samachar, 22 Oct 2019)
Bardish makes history as Canada’s first woman House leader (Asia Samachar, 21 Aug 2016)
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