Can Tories repeat past success in wooing the ethnic vote?
2015/10/19 Leave a comment
Further to my earlier post Visible Minority Candidates in the 2015 Election: Making Progress, good range of comments by Myer Siemiatycki, Thierry Giasson, and Ratna Omidvar on whether or not the Conservatives can maintain their inroads (most recent polls suggest not).
We will see who is right Monday night:
Opinion is divided as to whether the Conservative Party will be able to repeat its success in drumming up support in the ethnic and newcomer communities in next week’s federal election.
In 2011, the strategy was to “broaden the support of the party and reach out to visible minority communities,” says Myer Siemiatycki, a professor of political science at Ryerson University. “We saw a very concerted and aggressive outreach by the Conservatives.”
That effort proved to be successful. According to an Ipsos exit poll, 42 per cent of immigrants to Canada voted Conservative. The party won 43 per cent of the vote of immigrants who had been in the country for more than a decade. In that same poll, only 37 per cent of people born in Canada voted for the Conservatives.
But this time around it may not work as well, Siemiatycki says. Issues like the niqab, terrorism and security and the Conservatives’ stands on what they have described as “barbaric cultural practices” as well as policies on Syrian refugees, family reunification and citizenship have irked many and perhaps driven away some ethnic or multicultural voters.
Because of that, Siemiatycki gives Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives a failing grade when it comes to wooing multicultural and ethnic Canadians this campaign. Charm won’t be enough in this election, he says. As for the Liberals and New Democrats, Siemiatycki ranks their performance as neck and neck, giving both parties a resounding A for their efforts.
While neither party does the kind of narrowcasting the Conservatives are famous for, they have gone out of their way to include a diverse slate of candidates as well as make campaign appearances in diverse ridings, he says.
More importantly, both parties have strongly spoken out against Tory policies, including family reunification; citizenship, the niqab and refugees, he adds. Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and NDP leader Tom Mulcair are trying to win over newcomers and minority communities by arguing that Tory policies are not in the best interest of the country, he says. “It took courage, I think, to stand for minority rights; to stand for inclusion based on diversity and pluralism, tolerance and the rule of law.”
However, Thierry Giasson, professor of political science at Laval University, believes the Tories have been very effective — perhaps just as effective — this time around. They know what they’re doing when it comes to wooing specific ethnic and newcomer communities, he says.
…Ratna Omidvar, founder of the Global Diversity Exchange, a think tank at Ryerson University, believes the Conservatives have made substantial inroads in certain ethnic communities by appealing to “mainstream values within (certain) immigrant communities that are in favour of law and order … I do think the Conservatives have the lead on this.”
Source: Can Tories repeat past success in wooing the ethnic vote? | Toronto Star
Multicultural Meanderings 