Power politics on display amid pandemic - The Tribune India | Canada News Media
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Power politics on display amid pandemic – The Tribune India

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Radhika Ramaseshan

Senior journalist

After the unsettling moments, Uddhav Thackeray is set to legitimise his constitutional position by getting elected as a member of the legislative council. It was not an easy passage for the Maharashtra Chief Minister to secure a place in the council as he battles hard to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in India’s worst-hit state.

Evidently, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his ally of yore, has not forgotten that Uddhav had weaselled out of a long partnership just when the BJP was readying to anoint its former CM, Devendra Fadnavis, for a second term after the last Maharashtra elections. The Governor, BS Koshyari, sat on a recommendation from the state cabinet to nominate Uddhav to the council from his discretionary quota. Social distancing made it practically impossible to hold the scheduled elections and fill in the vacancies to the lower house of the legislature. With the deadline of May 28 for Uddhav’s nomination fast approaching, he had no choice but to seek Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention. The move resulted in an ‘order’ from the Election Commission to conduct the legislative council elections and pave the way for a berth for Uddhav, who had initially toyed with the idea of contesting an assembly seat and then abandoned it. For a while, it looked as though Maharashtra would plunge into an unwanted constitutional crisis. In normal circumstances, the BJP might have been tempted to muddy the waters, which its state leaders badly wanted even in the extraordinary circumstances of the present day, but evidently, better sense prevailed on the Central brass.

Power politics amidst a pandemic? What’s to stop parties from playing the sport? Maharashtra seems to be a favourite target any which way. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government was apparently caught off-guard when, on April 27, the Centre notified that the sought-after International Financial Services Centre Authority (IFSCA) will be headquartered at Gandhinagar instead of Mumbai, the original earmarked site. A take-in? Hard to tell. The preceding BJP-Shiv Sena dispensation had been persuaded to forfeit the land set aside for the IFSCA for a bullet train terminal. Birthed in 2006 by the Manmohan Singh government, Mumbai was chosen because its time zone was uniquely positioned mid-way between those of the two major IFSCs at London and Singapore. Bankers and economic analysts estimated that the authority could have created at least 100,000 jobs in the primary financial sector and an equal number in the tertiary. The IFSCA will be a unified authority to regulate financial service centres in India, including banking, the capital markets and insurance that are currently monitored by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Insurance Regulatory an Development Authority of India.

The MVA could do nothing except register a token protest because Uddhav’s election became an over-riding consideration. However, the critical decision that empowers the IFSCA to administer financial products (securities, deposits, insurance contracts) and financial services and institutions was interpreted in political quarters as the product of a historical legacy: the Maharashtra-Gujarat rivalry, sowed by the demand for a separate state of the Gujarati-speaking population. It resulted in the carving of Gujarat from the bilingual Bombay Presidency in 1960. Gujarat had to live with the ‘ignominy’ of ‘ceding’ Mumbai (originally Bombay), India’s financial capital, to Maharashtra in return for getting the tribal-dominated Dang region.

Maharashtra was not the only centre for a subtle but inescapable game of political one-upmanship. The exodus of people who left their home states to seek employment in urban agglomerates — and were literally pushed out once the national lockdown extracted a cruel economic toll — eluded rational thinking and tentative solutions. Instead, states used it to earn plaudits over the others. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were examples.

Nitish Kumar, the Bihar Chief Minister, mulishly refused to open his state’s borders to the throng of migrants desperately wanting to return home, after walking or cycling back thousands of miles. His apprehension was that they were potential Covid-19 vectors although there was no hard data to prove that those who were fortunate to come back had transmitted the virus. Health management was evidently Nitish’s bane because his government was severely critiqued for failing to stem an encephalitis outbreak in 2019. This time, he had to contend with not just a huge population of the working class and the poor but students from Bihar who went to study in Rajasthan, Karnataka and other states but were left high and dry once their places of learning closed indefinitely. He was unmoved by their plight as well. Pressure exerted by the BJP, his ally, did not work.

Trust politics to play here as well. The BJP was afraid that its middle-class base in Bihar would be angered if the students, from relatively well-off families, were left hanging. It used its chief ministers, Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh, to beam a signal to their Bihar counterpart. Adityanath and Chouhan organised buses to ferry back the students stranded in Rajasthan’s Kota. That message too was not picked up by Nitish who wouldn’t budge from his stated position. He reiterated that the Centre’s enshrined guidelines, drawn from the Disaster Management Act, did not allow inter-state movement during the lockdown. Finally, he was compelled to relent after the Union Home Ministry amended the norms and allowed the migrants to travel back through specially requisitioned transport.

Madhya Pradesh paid a huge price for the power politics on display after the Congress government was dislodged for a BJP-led one by engineering defections. The spectacle was staged when the pandemic had begun ravaging India although MP was not among the first casualty. The failure to constitute a cabinet — Chouhan ran a solo show until recently — and the bureaucracy’s apathy caused an unforeseen spike in the Covid cases in MP. Mercifully, Maharashtra escaped a similar fate.

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Review finds no case for formal probe of Beijing’s activities under elections law

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OTTAWA – The federal agency that investigates election infractions found insufficient evidence to support suggestions Beijing wielded undue influence against the Conservatives in the Vancouver area during the 2021 general election.

The Commissioner of Canada Elections’ recently completed review of the lingering issue was tabled Tuesday at a federal inquiry into foreign interference.

The review focused on the unsuccessful campaign of Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu in the riding of Steveston-Richmond East and the party’s larger efforts in the Vancouver area.

It says the evidence uncovered did not trigger the threshold to initiate a formal investigation under the Canada Elections Act.

Investigators therefore recommended that the review be concluded.

A summary of the review results was shared with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP. The review says both agencies indicated the election commissioner’s findings were consistent with their own understanding of the situation.

During the exercise, the commissioner’s investigators met with Chinese Canadian residents of Chiu’s riding and surrounding ones.

They were told of an extensive network of Chinese Canadian associations, businesses and media organizations that offers the diaspora a lifestyle that mirrors that of China in many ways.

“Further, this diaspora has continuing and extensive commercial, social and familial relations with China,” the review says.

Some interviewees reported that this “has created aspects of a parallel society involving many Chinese Canadians in the Lower Mainland area, which includes concerted support, direction and control by individuals from or involved with China’s Vancouver consulate and the United Front Work Department (UFWD) in China.”

Investigators were also made aware of members of three Chinese Canadian associations, as well as others, who were alleged to have used their positions to influence the choice of Chinese Canadian voters during the 2021 election in a direction favourable to the interests of Beijing, the review says.

These efforts were sparked by elements of the Conservative party’s election platform and by actions and statements by Chiu “that were leveraged to bolster claims that both the platform and Chiu were anti-China and were encouraging anti-Chinese discrimination and racism.”

These messages were amplified through repetition in social media, chat groups and posts, as well as in Chinese in online, print and radio media throughout the Vancouver area.

Upon examination, the messages “were found to not be in contravention” of the Canada Elections Act, says the review, citing the Supreme Court of Canada’s position that the concept of uninhibited speech permeates all truly democratic societies and institutions.

The review says the effectiveness of the anti-Conservative, anti-Chiu campaigns was enhanced by circumstances “unique to the Chinese diaspora and the assertive nature of Chinese government interests.”

It notes the election was prefaced by statements from China’s ambassador to Canada and the Vancouver consul general as well as articles published or broadcast in Beijing-controlled Chinese Canadian media entities.

“According to Chinese Canadian interview subjects, this invoked a widespread fear amongst electors, described as a fear of retributive measures from Chinese authorities should a (Conservative) government be elected.”

This included the possibility that Chinese authorities could interfere with travel to and from China, as well as measures being taken against family members or business interests in China, the review says.

“Several Chinese Canadian interview subjects were of the view that Chinese authorities could exercise such retributive measures, and that this fear was most acute with Chinese Canadian electors from mainland China. One said ‘everybody understands’ the need to only say nice things about China.”

However, no interview subject was willing to name electors who were directly affected by the anti-Tory campaign, nor community leaders who claimed to speak on a voter’s behalf.

Several weeks of public inquiry hearings will focus on the capacity of federal agencies to detect, deter and counter foreign meddling.

In other testimony Tuesday, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis told the inquiry that parliamentarians who were targeted by Chinese hackers could have taken immediate protective steps if they had been informed sooner.

It emerged earlier this year that in 2021 some MPs and senators faced cyberattacks from the hackers because of their involvement with the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which pushes for accountability from Beijing.

In 2022, U.S. authorities apparently informed the Canadian government of the attacks, and it in turn advised parliamentary IT officials — but not individual MPs.

Genuis, a Canadian co-chair of the inter-parliamentary alliance, told the inquiry Tuesday that it remains mysterious to him why he wasn’t informed about the attacks sooner.

Liberal MP John McKay, also a Canadian co-chair of the alliance, said there should be a clear protocol for advising parliamentarians of cyberthreats.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

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NDP beat Conservatives in federal byelection in Winnipeg

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WINNIPEG – The federal New Democrats have kept a longtime stronghold in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in Winnipeg.

The NDP’s Leila Dance won a close battle over Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds, and says the community has spoken in favour of priorities such as health care and the cost of living.

Elmwood-Transcona has elected a New Democrat in every election except one since the riding was formed in 1988.

The seat became open after three-term member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with the Manitoba government.

A political analyst the NDP is likely relieved to have kept the seat in what has been one of their strongest urban areas.

Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh worked hard to keep the seat in a tight race.

“He made a number of visits to Winnipeg, so if they had lost this riding it would have been disastrous for the NDP,” Adams said.

The strong Conservative showing should put wind in that party’s sails, Adams added, as their percentage of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona jumped sharply from the 2021 election.

“Even though the Conservatives lost this (byelection), they should walk away from it feeling pretty good.”

Dance told reporters Monday night she wants to focus on issues such as the cost of living while working in Ottawa.

“We used to be able to buy a cart of groceries for a hundred dollars and now it’s two small bags. That is something that will affect everyone in this riding,” Dance said.

Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre placed a distant third,

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Trudeau says ‘all sorts of reflections’ for Liberals after loss of second stronghold

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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say the Liberals have “all sorts of reflections” to make after losing a second stronghold in a byelection in Montreal Monday night.

His comments come as the Liberal cabinet gathers for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the fall sitting of Parliament, which began Monday.

Trudeau’s Liberals were hopeful they could retain the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, but those hopes were dashed after the Bloc Québécois won it in an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.

Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administrator at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, beat Liberal candidate Laura Palestini by less than 250 votes. The NDP finished about 600 votes back of the winner.

It is the second time in three months that Trudeau’s party lost a stronghold in a byelection. In June, the Conservatives defeated the Liberals narrowly in Toronto-St. Paul’s.

The Liberals won every seat in Toronto and almost every seat on the Island of Montreal in the last election, and losing a seat in both places has laid bare just how low the party has fallen in the polls.

“Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to win and hold (the Montreal riding), but there’s more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau told reporters ahead of this morning’s cabinet meeting.

When asked what went wrong for his party, Trudeau responded “I think there’s all sorts of reflections to take on that.”

In French, he would not say if this result puts his leadership in question, instead saying his team has lots of work to do.

Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference this morning, but has already said the results are significant for his party.

“The victory is historic and all of Quebec will speak with a stronger voice in Ottawa,” Blanchet wrote on X, shortly after the winner was declared.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party had hoped to ride to a win in Montreal on the popularity of their candidate, city councillor Craig Sauvé, and use it to further their goal of replacing the Liberals as the chief alternative to the Conservatives.

The NDP did hold on to a seat in Winnipeg in a tight race with the Conservatives, but the results in Elmwood-Transcona Monday were far tighter than in the last several elections. NDP candidate Leila Dance defeated Conservative Colin Reynolds by about 1,200 votes.

Singh called it a “big victory.”

“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start,” he said on social media.

“Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”

New Democrats recently pulled out of their political pact with the government in a bid to distance themselves from the Liberals, making the prospects of a snap election far more likely.

Trudeau attempted to calm his caucus at their fall retreat in Nanaimo, B.C, last week, and brought former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on as an economic adviser in a bid to shore up some credibility with voters.

The latest byelection loss will put more pressure on him as leader, with many polls suggesting voter anger is more directed at Trudeau himself than at Liberal policies.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.

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