Frankly Speaking

Justin Trudeau is following in his father's footsteps after Monday's federal election - emerging with a minority government in his second election after the Trudeaumania wave disappeared. Canada emerged very divided from the election on Monday, and the first act of the three national party leaders after the results were in did not bode well for future co-operation. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke in Montreal just after Conservative leader Andrew Scheer began to speak in Regina. Scheer took to the stage while NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was winding up his remarks in Burnaby. The Liberals won a minority government, with 157 seats. Most of those seats are concentrated in the Toronto and Montreal areas, and in the Atlantic provinces. They were shut out in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and their B.C. presence is concentrated around Vancouver. They have no B.C. seats outside Metro Vancouver. The Conservatives have 121 seats, including ...

Delta MP Carla Qualtrough was one of the five Liberal MPs elected in the 2015 federal election in Surrey and Delta. All but one of those wins came in ridings where the Liberals have had a hard time being competitive for decades. The broken promise on electoral reform may hurt their re-election chances, as in all five ridings they won, the winning Liberal candidates took significant numbers of votes from the NDP. The federal Liberal government pulled the plug on electoral reform last week – and the fallout in Surrey and Delta may not be fully noticed until the next election in 2019. Four of the six local MPs commented after the about-face by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They said the reversal was disappointing, but not completely surprising, given the magnitude of the task and the lack of consensus about a new system. Conservative MP Dianne Watts took the opportunity to tease her Liberal opponents (five of the six local seats are held by Liberals), saying “that was a prom...

The Khalsa School, which has two campuses in Surrey, is offering as many as 1,000 Syrian refugee students free tuition for a year, as part of some generous initiatives from the Sikh community in B.C. The Sikh community is stepping up to the plate to ensure that Syrian refugees get off to a good start when they come to Canada. Newly-elected Liberal MP Randeep Sarai, who represents Surrey Centre in the House of Commons, convened a meeting last weekend to see what support could be offered to the about 3,000 refugees who are expected in B.C. within the next few months. About 30 representatives of various organizations have pledged a wide variety of support, from accommodation to transportation, child care and education. Services for children are of particular importance. Surrey is expected to be the destination for many of the refugees, perhaps 1,000 or more. School spaces and child care spaces are in short supply here, as a number of recent reports have pointed out. Surrey...