 "Chandra Arya")
Two-and-a-half years ago, Chandra Arya, 52, was not even a politician. Now, the Member of Parliament from Nepean, a seat in Canada's capital city of Ottawa, is the Chair of the Canada India Parliamentary Friendship Group. After last October's parliamentary elections, the group was reconstituted earlier this month, with its largest ever membership of over 75 MPs from both houses of Parliament. It is also among the largest such groups in the Canadian parliament.
"I talked to a lot of my colleagues, MPs, and found tremendous support to enhance this group," Arya, a Liberal Party MP, says. "A lot of people signed up on my suggestion and in the end, some people asked me to take this lead and I volunteered to do so." India's High Commissioner to Canada Vishnu Prakash describes Arya as "a doer and a person of ideas, who is keen to infuse greater momentum in bilateral ties".
Arya, who was an investment advisor and technology company executive in Ottawa, has identified advancing bilateral economic ties as a key priority in his new role. It is a challenging assignment, given that annual trade stands at a meager Canadian $8 billion despite a nearly 30 per cent jump last year, and well below the target of $15 billion by 2015 promised by the two governments. Talks on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or CEPA, and the Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement, or BIPPA, have dragged on for years, also missing their deadlines.
The Canadian MP admits there's a lot of work to do on those fronts. "From what I hear from the Canadian side, we are quite eager to take the negotiation to its logical end. I don't want to say that it is the Indian side that is an issue, because I'm yet to understand the complete status of the negotiations currently," Arya says.
Prakash confirms India's commitment to the pacts. "Both countries are committed to bring CEPA and BIPPA talks to early fruition. The last round of consultations held in New Delhi on April 22 was productive," he says.
While its function is roughly equivalent to the India Caucuses in the US Senate and House of Representatives, the parliamentary friendship group is a notch below parliamentary associations in terms of resources and reach. Arya is keen to upgrade the group to the status of an association. "That will enable bilateral exchange of parliamentarians, plus we will get staff support to host various events," he explains.
The first-time MP believes greater engagement, both on the political and policymaker fronts, is crucial for advancing bilateral ties. While there is a lot of interest about India among Canadian lawmakers, according to Arya, he feels India has not yet woken up to the potential of this partnership. "The Canadian MPs are quite aware of the potential of trade with India. Whether the same degree of awareness exists at the policymakers level in India, I don't know. I know the Indian high commissioner is very much aware of it, I know some of the officials who have visited are a bit aware of it, but beyond that I don't know how high priority is Canada in the minds of the policymakers in India," says Arya.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Canada in April 2015, when Conservative leader Stephen Harper was his counterpart, was seen as a milestone. Modi also met then opposition leader Justin Trudeau during that visit, and the two leaders have met or talked again since then. As Arya points out, the change of guard in Ottawa prompted little change in Canada's approach to India. "The Conservative government also worked hard to improve the trade relations between Canada and India. We too are committed to the same. It is a good thing that the main political parties are all on the same wavelength, and recognise the growing importance of India," says Arya.
His is a remarkable success story in Canadian politics, more so for a recent immigrant. The lawmaker, who was born in a village near Bengaluru, and studied at Bangalore University and Karnatak University, moved to Canada only a little over a decade ago with his wife and son. Despite holding engineering and business degrees, he says he had to re-educate himself and switch careers. "I took 12 to 13 courses in a matter of four months," he recalls.
In Ottawa, Arya worked with thee wealth management company CIBC Wood Gundy, and the defence and aerospace systems firm D-TA Systems. "I had zero names, zero phone numbers when I first landed here, and today I have in my Blackberry 1,700 names," he says.
In early 2014, despite lacking any exposure to politics, he became intrigued by the Liberal Party's new leader, Justin Trudeau's, pledge to hold open primaries to select candidates for the parliamentary election. By March 2014, he had announced his intention to run for the nomination in Nepean, a new constituency. "I did not have any mentors, not in the political sphere, not in the business sphere. I ran on my connections with the average Canadians in Ottawa. That was my base and that has been my greatest support," Arya says.
He was locked in a tight race against his Conservative opponent, but won comfortably as part of the pro-Trudeau wave across Canada. He proudly recalls that Trudeau started the final phase of the Liberal campaign from his office. "When I met Trudeau, I told him, I am going to deliver Nepean. Those were my first words to him after I became the candidate. I hope he remembers," say Arya with a laugh.
His ties to India remain strong, as his and his wife's families are all still in Karnataka. His wife Sangeetha works for the Ottawa Catholic School Board, and their son Sid is training to be a chartered accountant.
Arya is now part of the largest contingent of Indo-Canadian MPs in Ottawa, with 19 lawmakers from the community, a majority of them belonging to the Sikh faith. In fact, this led to an amusing incident during the campaign, when a Canadian journalist reported that while the Conservatives had both Sikh and Hindu candidates on their list, the Liberals had only nominated Sikhs. Arya received urgent messages from Trudeau's aide, saying, "Chandra, you are a Hindu, you have to tweet it out!" Arya believes Indo-Canadians are now getting more engaged in politics. "The Sikh community has been very active politically for a long time, and they deserve to be there. The Hindu and Muslim communities are also getting quite active now and we want to build on that," he says.
For now, Arya has big plans for the parliamentary group he heads. He plans to seek briefings from Canada's foreign and trade ministries for his members. He also urges Indian ministers and lawmakers to visit Canada. "The various committees in Indian Parliament, they too should visit, because some of the main work, at least on the Canadian side, gets done at the committee level and the group of MPs who are interested in this like the group we have, these make a big difference," he says.
