Ontario Municipality Election 2018 – Tamil Candidates in Markham
and Scarborough – Few Observations
Tamils living in Canada (or Canadian Tamils), especially in Ontario have
involved in Canadian politics for a long time. Many individuals have run for
MP, MPP, City Councillor as well as School Board Trustees in the past 15 years.
Compared to the past election history of Canada, we had a larger number of
Tamil candidates who ran for different positions in Toronto, Markham, Ajax and
other regions this year. Among them, most of the Tamil candidates were running
for office in Markham and Scarborough area.
It is obvious that
there are many Canadian Tamils who would like to see their fellow Tamil
representatives shine in Canadian politics as they have shined in other
positions. However, when more than one Tamil Candidate run for an office in
same electorate, Tamil community has been divided and it has been criticized by
Tamil media and Tamil community at large. Are the valid criticisms? Should
Canadian Tamils collectively choose one Tamil candidate to run for an office in
the future?
The purpose of this
review is to look at how Tamil candidates conducted their campaigns and whether
their strategies were successful and what are factors influenced he results.
Scarborough
-City of Toronto Councillors
There were three
Tamil candidates who ran for Councillor Position for Toronto City Councillor in
three different wards in Scarborough. The promises by all the candidates were
around the following key issues,
· Lesser crime
and safer city
· Better
roadways and more transit facilities – including subway and LRT
· More
affordable housing for low income families and newcomers
· More funding
for health and mental health
The following were
the three Tamil candidates in Scarborough.
1. Ward 23
Scarboorugh North – Neethan Saba
2. Ward 24
Scarborough Guildwood – Priyanth Nallaratnam
3. Ward 25
Scarborough Rouge Park – Neethan Shan
Among those three
candidates, Neethan Shan is a well-known candidate among Tamil Community. He
served as a Trustee in York region – 2006 to 2010 and Toronto TDSB trustee from
2016 to 2017 and as Toronto city Councillor from Feb 2017 to date. Among the
three Tamil candidates, he has secured more votes in his electorate (40%).
Neethan Saba has secured 13.5% of total votes in Ward 23 while Priyanth
Nallaratnam has received 8.3% of total votes in Ward 24. Though all three were
supported by Tamil voters and other communities and have received significant
number of votes, none of them were able to win and secure a seat.
Their campaigns were
decent in general and they didn’t waste their valuable time on tarnishing
opponents’ image. Among these three, Neethan Shan proved his strong support,
but has lost with very narrow gap of 154 votes. I believe that the recent
changes imposed by Provincial government which changed the catchment area has
impacted his victory. As his boundary is expanded to South east Scarborough,
Neethan Shan had to work hard in a short period of time to convince lots of
conservatives that live in South section of Scarborough Rouge-Park electorate.
On the other hand his affiliation with key Tamil organizations in the past has
also impacted positively as well as negatively.
Scarborough
- School Trustees
If we look at the TDSB School Board Trustee election in Toronto, there
were six Tamil candidates who ran for these
positions in different wards. Many residents believe that School board trustee
is a stepping stone position to becoming a Councillor or MPP or MP in the
future. They believe that a candidate tries to become a school trustee to get
popular in the community and to expand their social network for their future
goal. However, some of the candidates would consider this position to genuinely
contribute to shaping the education system in Ontario.
The promises/
commitments given by these trustee candidates were around providing better education,
improve the curriculum by updating them, prioritize mental health support, give
more attention to arts and culture, etc. There were 6 Tamil candidates in the
recent Trustee election in Scarborough.
1. Ward
18 – Parthi Kandavel – 22.3% of total votes and he won
2. Ward
21 – Yarlini Rajakulasingham – 31.5% of total votes and she won
3. Ward
21 – Ganesh Kulaserampillai – 3.8% of total votes
4. Ward
22 – Dr. Anu Sriskandarajah – 36.3% of total votes and she won
5. Ward
22 – Akila Rudrasingam – 10% of total votes
6. Ward
22 – Tharshigan Vijayapalan – 4.6% of total votes
Parthi Kandavel from
ward 18 has already completed one term as Trustee and he was able to talk about
achievements in the past during this election campaign. He has launched a
decent campaign this time too as he did in the past. I wouldn’t say it was an
easy win for him as he got only 22% of the total votes and the candidate
secured second position has secured 20% of the votes.
As you see the
results in Ward 21 – Yarlini got 32% votes. If we look at the campaign method
of Yarlini, she used only positive messages in her campaign. There were
criticism that she is running only because her father was supporting her
financially therefore able to run a good campaign. However, shouldn’t we expect
a candidate to use all the resources to win in an election? Despite of all the
criticisms, she has proven that she is capable of winning the election by
securing votes from other communities as well. Roy Hu lost to her just by 276
votes
Ward 22 - Among all
the wards in Scarborough this is the only ward we had three Tamil candidates
for the seat. However, Anu Sriskandarajah got 36% of the votes and set a clear
victory where next person in the list got only 14% of votes. Interestingly, Akila
Rudarasingham campaigned that she was the first Tamil candidate to register to
run for this position. I was wondering since when registering first to run for
an office became a qualification to win in the election? I believe that Anu’s
education background was a strong asset for her in the election.
More interesting fact
of this election is the winners of ward 18 and ward 22 are husband and wife.
But, it was not highlighted or no memes or trolling videos were created to
criticize them whereas a candidate in Markham ward 7 was highly criticized by
Tamils.
Both winning
candidates of Ward 18 & 22 were smart enough to use both ethnic resources
and main stream media for their campaign. Both had very good online presence
during their campaign and both won in their constituency. It is a rare occasion
for husband and wife to win in two wards in an election in one city.
Markham
- Councillors & Regional Councillors
If we look at the Candidates in Markham, Niran Jeyanesan ran in the
election with “I am the only Tamil candidate” slogan for regional councillor
position. Even the Tamil media decided to support him as he was the only
“Tamil” Candidate for Regional Councillor Position. However, he got only 14,
984 votes and secured 8th position out of 12 candidates.
Interestingly in Ward 4 and 8 also we had only one Tamil candidate who
ran for City Councillor position. However, Tamil media didn’t endorse those two
candidates as they did for Niran Jeyanesan.
Among all the
candidates for council and regional council, Niran Jeyanesan and Killi Chelliah
put Safety first. Killi was more concerned about Road safety compared to other
candidates. Niran has been working for police service and he highlighted his
transferrable skills on safety during his campaign. Malar and Killi both had
concern about better flow of traffic in Markham area, safety city, better city
services including snow removal, services for seniors and other residents.
City Councillor Positions – there were
8 candidates
1. Ward
4 - Shaarmina A. Rodrigo – 372 votes
2. Ward
5 – Sri Sivasubramaniam – 734 votes
3. Ward
5 – Jeremiah Vijeyaratnam – 525 votes
4. Ward 7 – Kethika Logan Kanapathi – 2,635 votes
and stands 2nd
5. Ward 7 – Killi Chelliah – 1,961 votes and became
3rd in the ward
6. Ward
7 – Malar Varatharaja – 1,587 votes and stands 4th
7. Ward
7 – Sothy Sella – 481 votes
8. Ward
7 – Elauppillai Srinathan – 236 votes
9. Ward
8 - Joseph (Mohan) Remisiar – 2,599 votes
Tamil community
didn’t talk much about ward 4, 5 & 8. Though, there were two Tamil
candidates who ran in Ward 5, discussion about Ward 5 wasn’t the “Talk of the
Town”. However, I personally liked Joseph’s (Ward 8) message to the public. He
asked people to come out to vote – not necessarily to him. He clearly promoted
democracy.
The biggest battle
amongst Tamil candidates was observed in Ward 7. I noticed that some candidates
typically following the tactics used in Sri Lanka and India to win the
election. Slogans like “I registered first”, “I am the most qualified
candidate”, “I am the only candidate ran in the previous election”, “I am
already winning and don’t waste your votes by casting for others”, “We can’t
allow family members to run in the election”, etc. were widely used in this
ward during last few weeks of the election campaign.
Logan Kanapathi was
criticized for encouraging his daughter to run in the same ward where he was
ruling for 12 years. Other candidates mentioned about this in their campaign.
Some people went one step further to say there is a under the table deal
between Usman and Logan. However, Logan proved that he still has strong
support. I am not sure if he used this election to check the support he has in
ward 7 and whether there is a possibility for his daughter to win in the
future.
Malar Varatharajah had a very good social media presence. She has also
used her professional skills in her campaign. Many Tamils assumed that she
would win. However, she became 4th in the race.
Similarly, Killi Chelliah entered the contest with strong background and a
strong volunteer team to work for him. He was able to secure 3rd position. Many
people mentioned that he should have used his picture at least in his big
signs. As he didn’t use his picture in public spaces, for many other community
he would have been an unknown candidate.
Even after the
election, supporters of the Ward 7 candidates are blaming each other for their
defeat. Tamil media also gave lots of attention to ward 7 during the election.
There were individual also either campaigned in support or against a candidate.
For example, Mr. Kathi Selvakumar released three different videos during the campaign
period. He openly supported Malar Varatharajah in one video. Later he directly
criticize and condemned Killi Chelliah in other video. But, Malar couldn’t beat
Killi in the election. Kethika and Malar have used “Gender” card in their
campaign. In general, all the Tamil candidates tried all different strategies
to win the election.
Ward 7 situation was
a “Talk of the Town” for days after the election as people continued to discuss
about this ward on social media. Thanks to Sri Lankan political situation which
gave new topic for Tamils to talk. There were number of complaints about
election malpractices in ward 7. Malpractices includes, removing signs of other
candidates, installing signs without home owner’s permission, taking the laptop
to houses and asking residents to vote online, changing the votes after casted,
etc. However, those complaints are yet to be proved.
Markham
- School Trustees
If we look at the
Trustee position for Area 4 (Ward 7 & 8) of Markham,
1.
Juanita Nathan and
2.
Kavitha Senthil were running in the same Area and Juanita secured her
position back.
There were stories
that Logan tried to convince Kavitha to withdraw. Those who spread this story
also questioned “Why doesn’t Logan withdraw his daughter’s application and let
the other leading Tamil candidate to win and secure the Ward 7 seat within
Tamil community”..
If we look at the
election results of Trustee positions, it seems that they won their seats by
targeting all the residents while giving adequate attention for Tamil voters.
But, I am not sure whether candidates who ran for the Councillor positions in
Markham and Scarborough targeted all the residents. They merely depended on
Tamil votes. I believe candidates from Tamil communities have to come out of
ethnocentric approach if they want to secure the seat.
If Tamil candidates
are interested in running in the future election, they should consider the
followings, in addition to their other preparations.
1. Hire a
skilled campaign manager who follows ethics in election campaign.
2. Shouldn’t talk
about other candidates (highlighting their weaknesses or mistakes) in your
social media profile continuously. If you do so, you are giving a free
(negative) publicity for them.
3. Develop your
strategy to have multi-ethnic campaign team. Then only you can reach other
communities.
4. Don’t depend on
Tamil media alone for your success. Expand your network through other media
outlets.
5. Hire volunteers
from high-school and university to do the campaign for you. Depending on
friends, families and social media groups alone will not bring you the victory.
6. Plan your campaign
ahead of time. Start attending social and cultural events and record your
presence as photos and videos – name them and save them for future use.
7. Attend the social
and community campaigns and advocacy activities around systemic issues that
affect residents – Ex: Discussion on safety, discussion on basic salary
increase, transportation issues. This will help you to get to know more and
more people over the time and when you go for election you already know many
individuals from different ethnic background.
I would like to
conclude my review with few questions. I have seen a very important question on
social media during this election and similar question was asked in the past
too. The question is “Why should a Tamil voter vote for a Tamil candidate?”
· Is it a valid question or not?
· Are we electing a candidate to take care of Tamil affairs or are we
electing a person from our community to serve all the communities living in the
area?
· What qualification and quality a candidate should have to be a Trustee,
Councillor, MPP or MP? Have we ever asked this question?
· Do we have healthy discussion about each candidates?
· What do we do after the election? What is our post-election civic
contribution?
· Are we using the elected officials for our own benefit or for a common
interest?
· Are we keeping them accountable for what they promised to do?
· Finally, do we have the right answers for all the above questions?
