Candidates of Colour Dominate New Immigrant-Heavy Ridings

Voters in ridings heavily populated by new immigrants and visible minorities overwhelmingly chose candidates of colour to represent them in the next Canadian Parliament.

An early analysis of yesterday’s election results by NCM showed 19 of the 23 ridings where one visible minority group is dominant either returned or elected MPs whose cultural heritage and origins reflected that of the majority of voters in their area.

In Ontario’s Brampton area, which has the largest South Asian population in the country, all four federal ridings went to the Liberal Party of Canada, which is projected to form a minority government.

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In B.C.’s Surrey-Newton riding, home to about 60,000 people where more than 60 per cent are South Asian New Canadians, all five candidates for the seat have South Asian heritage.

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More than 40 of 338 federal ridings in Parliament have populations where visible minorities are the largest voting bloc.

Elections Canada and Statistics Canada records show that compared with established immigrants (those who have lived in the country for 10 years or more) and non-immigrants, new Canadians (those who’ve immigrated to Canada in the previous 10 years) were less likely to vote in general elections.

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In a pre-election interview, Andrew Griffith, a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Environics Institute, said polling data suggests that new Canadians of South Asian heritage have a general tendency to vote for the Liberals or the NDP, while the Conservatives have fairly strong support from Chinese-Canadians.

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“Political parties have always taken demographic realities into account when selecting candidates,” he said.

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