Press Trust of India Posted online: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 at 1436 hours IST
Toronto, August 4: Punjabi is now the fourth most popular language in the Canadian Parliament after English, French and Italian with the election of eight Punjabi-speaking MPs in the newly-elected House of Commons.
A total of 10 South Asian Canadian MPs have been elected in the recent polls - six Liberals and four Conservatives. Out of them, eight speak Punjabi.
According to Statistics Canada, there are 2,71,220 people in Canada who identify Punjabi as their mother tongue.
Ruby Dhalla, one of the Punjabi-speaking MPs, said the election of 10 South Asian MPs was good news for ethnic communities and predicted that this number will increase in the future and encourage people belonging to minority groups to become more involved in the political process.
Deepak Obhrai, who was first elected to the House of Commons in 1997, was of the view that the increase in the number of MPs from the South Asian community will contribute significantly in the discussion of public policy issues within the community.
"It gives strength to the Canadian mosaic and it gives strength to the nation. We have such a diversity in the Parliament of Canada and it will enhance the debate on the national agenda," said Obhrai.
