Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the opposition Conservative party in Canada, has taken up the important task of establishing direct flights between Canada and Amritsar, Punjab, an official statement by FlyAmritsar Initiative, an independent advocacy group said.
Speaking at an event in Brampton, Poilievre said, “Punjabi Canadians have been calling on the federal government to deliver direct flights between Amritsar and Canada. But even after years of activism from the Punjabi community, the Liberal government has failed to fight gatekeepers and open the skies to Amritsar.”
“I along with my deputy leader Tim Uppal, shadow minister Jasraj Singh Hallan and a group of other conservatives are launching a full campaign to get the direct flight from Canada to the State of Punjab especially to Amritsar so that over million Canadians who have their origins in that part of the world can fly directly from our country to that beautiful place”, the minister added.
The opposition leader's interest was welcomed by the Punjabi diaspora, which has for long awaited the establishment of a direct flight route to their homeland. Currently, in the absence of a direct connectivity, the travelers have to land in Delhi before traveling to Punjab.
The FlyAmritsar Initiative, an independent advocacy group working to promote better air connectivity to Amritsar for last decade. In 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signed a new Open Skies Agreement with India that expanded on the existing air connectivity from other states but excluded Punjab.
FlyAmritsar Initiative spokesperson in Canada Mohit Dhanju introduced a parliamentary petition on the matter in the Canadian House of Commons. His petition was sponsored by Conservative Party MP Brad Vis from Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon received an overwhelming response from the Canadians securing nearly 20,000 signatures within a short span of 30 days, a news release stated.
