An Indo-Canadian was elected mayor of Fernie while another person of Indian origin was re-elected as Williams Lake’s top city official as municipal election results were declared in Canada’s westernmost province of British Columbia.
A third Indo-Canadian was elected the Mission city’s youngest mayor without a contest a month earlier.
Incumbent mayors were defeated as the elections were held for 161 municipalities and 27 regional districts on Saturday across British Columbia, where South Asians account for 9.6% of the population, according to the 2021 census.
Ramadass, who served on the city council for four years before entering the mayoral fray, said that, having grown up with limited means in India, he knows what it means to stretch every dollar and plan for the long term. “That mindset never leaves you — and it’s exactly the discipline I bring to how I think about public money,” Ramadass, who has worked in mining, automotive, and manufacturing sectors in the US, India, and Canada since 2003, said on his campaign website.
Gill did not expect to win the election without a contest. “I wanted an election.
I wanted to keep knocking on doors, put my eight-year record and my vision in front of this community, answer the hard questions, and ask people for their vote,” he said in a letter to the community.
