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The Conservatives won six new heavily ethnic ridings that were once Liberal strongholds, a trend they say proves their efforts to woo this vote have borne fruit.
They also came close to ousting Liberal incumbents in several ethnic constituencies in Vancouver and in the Greater Toronto Area, including Brampton Springdale and Brampton West, where the Liberals won by less than 2 per cent of the vote. In Vancouver South, Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh retained his seat by a mere 22 votes – compared with a 9,000-vote lead in 2006.
The Conservative party is touting this as a “major breakthrough,” noting that support for the Liberals among new Canadians is no longer guaranteed.
“We did extremely well among new Canadians and in cultural communities,” Jason Kenney, Conservative MP for Calgary Southeast and the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism, said in a telephone interview this week. “New Canadians have demonstrated their votes are not to be taken for granted, and that decades of false stereotyping by Liberals in immigrant communities is a barrier we have begun to overcome.”

Overall, voters in ethnic ridings across the country still overwhelmingly favoured the Liberals, who won 48 of the 80 ridings with visible-minority populations greater than 20 per cent. That is five less than they won in 2006. In comparison, the Conservatives won 18 – six more than in 2006 – and the New Democrats held steady with 11.
The Conservatives picked up seats in: North Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey North, Mississauga-Erindale, Oak Ridges-Markham and Thornhill.
A recount is under way in the B.C. riding of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, where Liberal Keith Martin held onto his seat by only 68 votes over Conservative challenger Troy DeSouza.
The downward trend for the Liberals is in part a reflection of their overall loss of support – they received 4 per cent less of the popular vote than they did in 2006.
However, academics also observe that the long-standing historical inclination for immigrants to vote Liberal began breaking down as far back as 2004. The Canadian Election Study found that 58 per cent of visible minority newcomers supported the Liberal party in 2006, compared with 71 per cent in 2000.
Jack Jedwab, executive director for the Association for Canadian Studies, notes the Liberals didn’t connect as strongly with their traditional constituents, giving the Tories an opening. “If the 20th century belonged to the Liberals, to recapture the 21st century, they will need to rebuild their traditional base in a country with changing demographics,” he said.
Myer Siemiatycki, a politics professor at Ryerson University, believes the vote swing may be partly attributed to the Tories’ increased outreach and direct mailing campaigns. However, he says the results also reflect the broader pattern of increased Conservative support. “What hurt the Liberals across the country was the popular perception of the party leader, and his main campaign plank – the carbon tax,” he said.
Mr. Kenney, though, is crediting his participation at hundreds of community events over the past two years. “I call it the Woody Allen strategy. Ninety per cent of life is just showing up,” he said. He recalls being squired to an event in Vancouver’s Chinese community by a young woman in a car covered in “Hello Kitty” paraphernalia. On another occasion, he marched in a large and colourful Polish parade through a heavily Sikh neighbourhood in Brampton. “The cross-cultural synergies were interesting,” he said.
Tory policies such as halving the landing fee, dropping visa requirements for certain Eastern European countries, making financial redress to the Chinese for the head tax, and increasing funding for a foreign credentials agency also won them votes. The party also promised to reform the immigration immigrant process, with a focus on temporary workers.
Now that there are more Conservative MPs in ridings dominated by new immigrants, Mr. Kenney said, it won’t be incumbent on him to attend every event himself.
“In past years, I’ve been the only person showing up at major events in the GTA. That will now change,” he said.
With files from Rick Cash
MARINA JIMÉNEZ
From Monday’s Globe and Mail
October 26, 2008 at 10:39 PM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081026.wridings1027/BNStory/politics/home
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