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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 8^th 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 2^nd

5.    Ward 7 – Killi Chelliah – 1,961 votes and became 3^rd 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 4^th 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 3^rd 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?