The “Ethnic Vote”: All Over the Map – Adams and Griffith

2015/08/21 Leave a comment

Further to our earlier op-ed in the Globe (Why Canada’s politicians fixate on the ethnic vote), Michael and I expanded it to include more information of visible minority representation and comparisons to the US:

Remarkably, the immigrants who were elected to Canada’s parliament in 2011 had not only become citizens, gotten themselves nominated, and then won election—but they represented all five main political parties and included many visible minorities: 18 Conservatives (15 visible minorities, of 166 elected), 18 New Democrats (12 visible minorities, of 103), four Liberals (2 visible minorities, of 34), and one each in the Bloc (1 visible minority, of 4) and the Green Party (no visible minority).

The Green Party is 100 per cent foreign-born: Elizabeth May is from Hartford, CT.

Another “only in Canada” fact is that our most right-wing party, the Conservative Party of Canada, attracts a substantial contingent of candidates born abroad.

The Bloc is dedicated to dismantling the country, but managed to be inclusive of the foreign-born and visible minorities. Only in Canada!

With respect to visible minorities (defined in the U.S. as non-white races and Hispanic), the U.S. has worse representation than Canada: 20 per cent in the House of Representatives compared to their population share of 37 per cent, only six per cent in the Senate), the vast majority of these are American-born visible minorities, mainly African Americans and Hispanic/Latinos, not immigrants.

Only 16 foreign-born members sit in either of the two houses. But many of these were born abroad to American parents, the most famous being John McCain and Canada’s Ted Cruz.

But even if we include all of these legislators as foreign born, they are still less than three per cent of Congress, where demographic parity would suggest that almost 70 foreign-born “should be” in both houses (to match the 13 per cent of “legal” Americans who are foreign-born).

Another “only in Canada” fact is that our most right-wing party, the Conservative Party of Canada, attracts a substantial contingent of candidates born abroad. In most countries, right-wing parties are anti-immigrant and would be unlikely to either attract or accept foreign-born candidates.

The “Ethnic Vote”: All Over the Map – New Canadian Media.

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OCASI Questions for political parties General Election 2015 | OCASI

2015/08/14 Leave a comment

Imagine we will see more of these as the election draws closer. Will be interesting to compare these with political party platforms when released and degree to which citizenship and immigration-related issues make it into the platforms:

1. Settlement Services

Settlement service is an important resource that helps refugees and immigrants to make a strong start in their new life in Canada. This year, the Government of Canada cut $14 million from immigrant settlement services in Ontario. Ontario has already faced cuts to settlement funding almost every year since 2010, affecting the capacity of community-based organizations that deliver these programs to maintain organizational stability and excellence in quality of service. The federal government no longer has immigration agreements with the provinces and territories, except in Quebec.

Question: How will you support the immigrant and refugee serving-sector to deliver appropriate settlement services to immigrants and refugees, and support them to reach their full social, political and economic potential?

2. Employment

There is extensive research documenting the chronic underemployment of skilled immigrants in Canada, as well as research to show the strong correlation between racialization and the growing wage gap in the labour market i. Recent (past ten years) immigrants at all skill levels (internationally and locally trained professionals, tradespeople, lower-skilled dependents) are facing higher levels of un/under-employment compared to earlier cohorts, and compared to those born in Canada. For many, re-training, re-qualifying and licensing in Canada have not resulted in a significant change in job or wage prospects, and discrimination continues to be a significant barrier – particularly for racialized immigrants and refugees. This represents a significant missed opportunity for our economy and tremendous personal cost to the affected individuals and their communities.

Question: What will you do to improve the employment prospects, and pay parity for immigrants at all skill levels?

3. Citizenship

Only 26 per cent of permanent residents who settled in Canada in 2008 acquired Canadian citizenship, compared with 44 per cent for immigrant who arrived in 2007 and 79 percent for those who arrived in 2000.[Note: The updated numbers – full 2014 data – are somewhat better but reflect the same trend. 49 percent of those who settled in 2008, 57 percent who landed in 2007.]  These are the findings of research on citizenship acquisition released earlier this year ii. Access to citizenship has become more restricted, and naturalized citizens and those with dual citizenship are treated differently under the law.

Question: How will you ensure access to citizenship and exercise of citizenship is equitable?

4. Refugee sponsorship

59.5 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced as a result of war and persecution by the end of 2014 according to the UNHCR iii – the highest level ever recorded. A year earlier the number was 51.2 million. Canada’s Government Assisted Refugees program numbers have fallen by almost 22% in the ten years since 2004, and by 24% for all refugee programs iv.

Question: What will you do to increase the number of Government Assisted Refugees (GARs) over and above the current numbers, and to welcome more refugees to Canada through all the programs?

5. Migrant Workers

Canada has relied for decades on migrant workers to support and sustain our economy. In previous years, migrant workers in all occupations and sectors were allowed to stay and build a new life in Canada for themselves and their families. In recent years while migrant workers are recruited to work in almost all sectors and occupations only some are allowed to stay. The most recent change has further restricted the pathway to permanent residency for Caregivers and Domestic workers who arrived through what was known as the Live-in Caregiver Program until December 2014.

Question: What will you do to provide a pathway to permanent residency to all migrant workers, including those recruited through the Temporary Foreign Worker, International Mobility and Seasonal Agricultural Worker programs?

6. Family reunification

Family reunification is a pillar of Canada’s immigration program. Changes to legislation and policy in recent years combined with existing barriers are contributing to an increase in prolonged and sometimes indefinite delays in reunification. They include a narrow definition of family (example: non-biological children are not included), a category of “excluded family members, lower maximum age of a “dependent child” who can be sponsored, limitations on reunifying with parents and grandparents and more. Refugees and immigrants, particularly those from the Global South are subject to greater scrutiny and are among those most affected. Between 2010 and 2013, family reunification reduced by 15% v.

Question: What will you do to remove barriers to family reunification and allow all categories of family members to reunite in Canada?

7. Residents without Immigration Status

Canada has a large and growing number of residents without full immigration status. The growth in this population has resulted in part from gaps in immigration and refugee policies and practice and a massive growth in migrant workers, who also happen to be vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Residents without immigrant status are a part of our economy and our communities. Most do not qualify for any form of government assistance, and support themselves and their families through their own efforts. They pay taxes without receiving the full benefit of legal resident status.

Question: What is your position on the regularization of residents without full immigration status?

OCASI Questions for political parties General Election 2015 | OCASI.

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More women, minorities running in GTA in federal election

2015/08/14 Leave a comment

Election_2015Encouraging but will see how many elected (47 percent of the GTA are visible minorities):

Many GTA voters can look forward to voting for either a woman or a person from a diverse background during this year’s federal election.

While the nomination process is ongoing — the deadline for candidates isn’t until Sept. 28 — there has already been a concerted effort by the federal parties to court women and minorities to run in Toronto-area ridings.

When it comes to women, the NDP leads the way with 21 of its 50 nominated candidates being women. The Liberals trail closely behind, while about one-in-four Conservative and Green Party candidates are female.

 

Incumbent NDP MP Peggy Nash, who is running again in Parkdale-High Park, said it’s positive to see so many women in the race.

“I think that a strong slate of women, really offers Canadians a full choice and broad representations so that they’re full range of views are getting heard,” Nash said.

While the number of female candidates in the GTA and the rest of Ontario is going up, the co-founder of Equal Voice — an organization that encourages women to run — says there’s still work to be done, especially given the fact that just 25 per cent of the 41st Parliament was female.

“That doesn’t nearly approximate the percentage of women in the population. And it does suggest that our democracy is not fair,” said Donna Dasko.

The number of minority candidates also appears to be on the rise, with the Liberals leading the way.

 

Ratna Omidvar, of Ryerson University’s Global Diversity Exchange, said growth in this area is inevitable given Toronto’s diversity, particularly in the suburbs.

“Think of Brampton, think of Scarborough, it is then inevitable that all parties will be running candidates from these communities,” Omidvar said.

More women, minorities running in GTA in federal election – Toronto – CBC News.

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Race Affects How Media Cover Canadian Political Candidates – New Canadian Media

2015/07/16 Leave a comment

Some good research and insights (disclosure: I know Erin from our time at CIC):

Where Tolley also finds stark differences in coverage is in the types of issues visible minorities seem to be most connected to. While they are often quoted in stories on immigration policy, multiculturalism or poverty – all “so-called minority issues,” as Tolley refers to them – their voices are often absent from stories about more “pressing” issues like the economy and the environment.

“Some people said to me, ‘Well, that makes sense because probably visible minorities don’t care as much about those issues,’” recalls Tolley. “[But] when I talked to visible-minority candidates about their issue priorities, many of them talked about the economy – things like taxes, finding good jobs, having credentials recognized, that sort of thing – and that doesn’t come out in their media coverage.”

Tolley finds the notions of visible-minority candidates only being able to serve people from their own ethnic group and unable to understand the issues of other Canadians concerning. White candidates, she says, don’t face this challenge, as they are often positioned as having broad reach and the ability to “woo” or “court” the ethnic vote.

“No one ever talks about the fact that white candidates also appeal to white voters. I mean, no one would write that,” Tolley says. “No one even describes white candidates as ‘white candidates’ or really talks about where they were born. Whiteness is basically put forward as the default and therefore not worthy of being mentioned, whereas minority or immigrant background is something that is covered because it is seen to be outside the norm or atypical, and therefore newsworthy.”

With the upcoming elections, there is still time for media outlets to consider Tolley’s research in their approach to the stories that they run. Everything from picture and headline choice to inclusion of socio-demographic background and whether a “diversity” angle is relevant to a story or not should be considered, she advises.

But most importantly, Tolley says, people – not just the media, but all Canadians – need to be open to the idea of talking about race, a subject she found during her research many are still uncomfortable with.

“Some of my interviewees talked about the fact that they are colour-blind – they don’t see colour,” she explains. “I said instead of talking about ‘colour-blindness,’ we should think more about the fact that we’ve been mute in conversations about race. We haven’t had mature discussions about it.”

Race Affects How Media Cover Canadian Political Candidates – New Canadian Media.

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Bill Blair wants to run for Liberals in fall election

2015/04/27 Leave a comment

Quite a coup, and interesting the public reasons for Blair choosing the Liberals over the Conservatives.

So while the Conservatives have Julian Fantino (also a former Toronto police chief) of veteran abuse fame , the Liberals have Bill Blair who, while not without controversies, talks the language of inclusion. Advantage Liberal:

The recruitment of Blair is a coup for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and a boost for the Liberals in Toronto and across the country, given the profile of the former police chief, a senior party official told the Star.

“He’s an excellent community leader. He’s got a depth of experience I don’t think you would find anywhere else in the country,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“We’re thrilled,” the official said.

In going with the Liberals, Blair rejected strong arm-twisting by the Conservatives to run with them, including personal overtures by senior cabinet ministers, a source said. Blair declined to comment, saying only that he had “respectful discussions” with a “number of people.”

“I was asked to consider a number of different options for the future,” he said. “I’ve made my choice and for me, it’s a values-based choice.”

Blair says his decision was cemented in personal discussions with Trudeau. It was influenced, too, by a major speech the Liberal leader gave in March that laid out a vision for liberty and diversity in Canada while condemning the Tories for a “corrosive” style of politics.

“It really for me articulated some of the things I really believe in and the things that I think make communities safer and more livable,” Blair said.

“In my conversations with Mr. Trudeau, I felt there was a tremendous alignment in our values,” Blair said.

In his speech, Trudeau accused the Conservatives of deliberately stoking terror worries among Canadians, warning “fear is a dangerous thing.”

Blair picked up on the theme saying that the “great threat to public safety is fear.”

“I understand the very real threat that terrorism presents to Canadian society and I think we’ve got to do everything we can to fight extremism and violence,” he said.

But he said that the communities impacted by radicalization cannot be further isolated as part of that terror fight.

“Their help is critically important. I would not in any way further alienate them or isolate them. I would want to include them in the solution,” he said.

Bill Blair wants to run for Liberals in fall election | Toronto Star.

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Three ways Liberals and NDP can win over conservative voters: Michael Adams on citizenship

2015/04/08 Leave a comment

Michael Adams on citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism in the context of the coming election:

Civic education and pride in citizenship were once rather conservative ideals. They were connected to the patriotism and loyalty to country that right-leaning people have often claimed as special virtues. Recently, however, Canada’s immigration program has taken on a more transactional character. It has become more strongly associated with short-term labour trends than with long-term nation-building. And indeed, a recent analysis has indicated that the rate at which immigrants become citizens has declined.

Despite some concerns about cultural integration (a process that citizenship and belonging only help), Canadians remain positive about immigration and take pride in multiculturalism. Shifting the immigration frame away from this quarter’s want ads and toward meaningful citizenship, civic participation, and inclusive nation-building might just appeal to some Canadian patriots who believe countries and their citizens do best when their responsibilities toward each other are durable and deeply felt.

Three ways Liberals and NDP can win over conservative voters – The Globe and Mail.

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In politics, it’s dangerous to take the low road: Bruce Anderson

2015/03/21 Leave a comment

Bruce Anderson, is his usual diplomatic way, makes strong points about wedge politics, topical given some of the comments by Conservative MPs in particular:

They [political strategists] know that voters have had a bellyful of manufactured drama – politicians getting hot and bothered about issues that shouldn’t be at or near the top of the agenda.

For one reason, the audience can spot the manipulation. It’s like a magic trick when the audience has figured out how the illusion is done: not only is it not entertaining, it’s awkward and embarrassing. At best, voters might just ignore you, because they know the tactic is not serious, just a game.

But the bigger reason to hesitate is the risk of starting a hazardous chain reaction, one that gets outside your control quickly. When you use a controversial issue to rally your base, there is a greater risk of also hardening and energizing your opponents too.

There are highly skilled and experienced campaign teams all across the spectrum, people who know how to turn a wedge attack aimed against them into an opportunity to raise money and ire and generate a backlash.

The late U.S. politician Adlai Stevenson (who twice failed in presidential bids against Dwight Eisenhower) said, almost 60 years ago, “the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.”

It would be naïve to suggest that we’re in for a new golden age of only positive campaigning. But a pretty fair case can be made that voters are noticing and responding well to high-road campaigning, which reveals how fed up they are with the opposite.

And the smartest campaigners know that wedge issues are becoming less like a magic potion for electoral success, and more like nitroglycerine: a choice that could go pretty badly, if fumbled.

In politics, it’s dangerous to take the low road – The Globe and Mail.

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Election Watch: Beyond the “Ethnic Vote” – New Canadian Media – NCM

2015/03/14 Leave a comment

Start of an interesting series in New Canadian Media in the lead-up to the October election by political science profs Inder S. Marwah, Stephen E. White and Phil Triadafilopoulos:

  • What exactly is the “ethnic vote”?  How is it understood and/or defined by different parties, media and researchers? Is there such a thing as an ethnic vote, or are there many different (perhaps conflicting) ethnic votes? Do assumptions about the “ethnic vote” portray widely diverse communities as sharing in a single set of values or interests?
  • What are the key ridings to watch in the lead-up to the 2015 election? How will demographic factors affect local, regional and national voting patterns?
  • What are the issues of greatest concern to new Canadians and/or longstanding ethnic communities? How are the different parties addressing them?
  • Are religious practices being politicized for electoral purposes, as has been the case in many European states? How are new Canadians likely to respond to such efforts?

We will explore how immigration and new Canadian communities are helping to shape the country’s political landscape. Broadly speaking, Canada is an immigrant-receiving success story. In the last few decades, the country has opened itself to a high volume of immigration, provided immigrant populations with relatively easy access to naturalization and citizenship, and maintained its social cohesion, political stability and economic wellbeing along the way. While new Canadians undoubtedly face barriers in accessing social, political and economic opportunities, they fare better in these respects than do immigrant communities in many other countries. New Canadians are, then, poised to profoundly influence the 2015 federal election, and more broadly, Canada’s political life. We look forward to analyzing their influence in the months ahead.

Election Watch: Beyond the “Ethnic Vote” – New Canadian Media – NCM.

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Trudeau stood up by controversial guest at Chinese New Year event

2015/02/23 Leave a comment

The challenges of foreign diplomats navigating the diaspora communities and deciding which events to attend and which not, to avoid being seen to favour one side or the other:

While this kind of activity does not constitute any breach of electoral rules, it lives at the complicated intersection of diplomatic protocol and multicultural politics. “That kind of thing is going over the edge,” said Fen Hampson, distinguished fellow and director at CIGI’s Global Security & Politics Program, before Thursday’s no-show. “You’d be seen as courting the opposition, or worse, playing to their electoral song sheet. You can be badly burned if that party doesn’t form a new government and find yourself on the list where calls won’t get answered by a minister if you were seen as dabbling in domestic politics.”

… When asked about how to navigate this zone of pre-election politics, a senior G7 diplomat said that visiting the campaign headquarters wouldn’t be a problem, provided that respects were also paid to the rivals. Going to a fundraiser, on the other hand, crossed the line. Why go if you wouldn’t be contributing financially? “There’s a risk of being seen as being involved with internal politics,” the diplomat said.

Trudeau stood up by controversial guest at Chinese New Year event – The Globe and Mail.

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Politics is the only free market that matters to Harper: McLaughlin

2014/10/15 Leave a comment

Cutting piece by David McLaughlin on the “shopping for votes” phenomenon and the Government’s approach to maximizing its electoral advantages:

Voters are consumers, not citizens. We are ‘shopped for votes’ by parties as our attachment to the political process waxes and wanes. Market segmentation slices and dices the electorate into micro-chunks of likely and accessible voters resulting in targeted voters being bombarded with direct appeals for support or money. Once captured in a party’s database, the virtuous cycle is repeated as retaining a committed supporter is ‘job one’ of any party.

The Conservative Party’s goal to get their hands on news video clips of their opponents for political advertising through new copyright rules fits with this dynamic. As the country is splintered into hundreds of mini-campaigns targeting specific voter demographics, using this material to craft electoral and fundraising messaging is simply the new normal.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been resolute in using incumbency to advance the political dominance of the party he leads and turn the Conservative Party of Canada into the default governing party. He has double-downed year-after-year on a strategy founded first on a core base vote glued by values and, then second, on a relentless string of election rule changes to give his party advantage over his opponents.

Free market capitalism is sold as beneficial for consumers. Healthy competition leads to more choice, lower prices, better service, and innovation.

But free market democracy is no guarantor of equivalent benefits for voters. After all, the end game of ideas and values in a democracy versus products and services in a marketplace are radically different from each other.

Conservatives instinctively favor free markets. It is striking that for all its populist interventionism and regulation as part of its consumer agenda, the most visible manifestation of free market philosophy in action is taking place in the political marketplace.

Politics is the only free market that matters to Harper – The Globe and Mail.

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