Indo-Canadian candidates have won mayoral races in British Columbia’s municipal elections held on October 17. Two were elected for the first time, and another was returned to office. Harshan Ramadass, who was born in India, is the new mayor of Fernie, a city in the Elk Valley in the East Kootenay region. He won 1,524 votes, or 54.5 per cent, ahead of fellow councillor Kyle Hamilton, who got 1,194 votes. He succeeds Nic Milligan, who did not seek re-election.
Ramadass is an engineer with an MBA.
He moved to Fernie in 2011 to work in the mining industry and was elected to city council in 2022.
He holds a senior role at Elk Valley Resources, one of the region’s biggest employers. “Having grown up with limited means in India, I know what it means to stretch every dollar and plan for the long term,” he says on his campaign website.
In Saanich, near Victoria, Rishi Sharma won the mayor’s seat with 17,157 votes, or 45.31 per cent. Councillor Zac De Vries came second with 14,785 votes. Sharma had lost bids for council in 2018 and 2022, the second time by around ten votes.
He ran with the Save Our Saanich slate, which won all six of its races, including five council seats. The slate was formed in opposition to local development plans and concerns about public engagement at the municipality.
Surinderpal Rathor has been returned as mayor of Williams Lake. He came to the town in 1974 as a 21-year-old immigrant from India. He first won a council seat in 1993 and held it for seven straight terms, a stretch of 21 years, before taking the mayor’s chair in 2022.
The results came in an election that saw many mayors voted out. Green Party councillor Pete Fry unseated Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, and Doug McCallum won back Surrey’s top post by defeating incumbent Brenda Locke.
Melissa Granum is projected to replace George Harvie in Delta. Others held on, including Mike Hurley in Burnaby and Ross Siemens in Abbotsford.
The newly elected mayors and councillors serve four-year terms, until the next local elections in October 2030. Saanich’s council will be sworn in on November 2.
