Abstract
The Conservative Party of Canada attributed its successful breakthrough in the Toronto area during the 2011 Canadian federal election to their engagement of ethnic and visible minority voters, whereas in the past, these voters were associated with the Liberal party. This research study uses spatial and statistical analyses to test patterns of association between the electoral support for the three major parties and presence of ethnic and visible minority communities. The research uses data from the 2006 Census of Canada, as well as the voting results of the 2011 and 2008 federal elections, the 2011 and 2007 Ontario provincial elections and the 2010 Toronto mayoral election. The findings suggest that non-European origin ethnic and visible minority communities are associated with the Liberal party at the federal and provincial levels, but the opposite is true at the municipal level, and the federal Liberals are haemorrhaging support from ethnic and visible minority communities to the Conservatives and NDP. The victories of the federal Conservatives may instead be associated with other factors like vote splitting, low voter turnout, and divisions between urban and suburban areas.
Highlights
In the 2011 Canadian federal election, the Conservative party made significant breakthroughs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to secure a majority government
This paper examines the electoral support of ethnic and visible minority voters in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) for the three major political parties, the Conservative Party, Liberal Party, and New Democratic Party (NDP), with emphasis on the 2011 federal election
In the sections that follow, this paper looks at the results of the 2011 federal election to see whether the Conservative victory in 2011 was associated with more support from immigrant communities, how immigrant voting patterns have changed since the 2008 federal election, whether they are consistent with the 2011 and 2007 Ontario elections and the 2010 Toronto mayoral election, and how the ethnic vote influenced the 2010 Toronto municipal election
Summary
In the 2011 Canadian federal election, the Conservative party made significant breakthroughs in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to secure a majority government. This puts youth in a unique situation where they can perform political brokering activities and inform the political socialization of their parents (Wong and Tseng, 2008) This “trickle up” effect can reward immigrant and visible minority communities that have a large population of young people, as they can affect the way that their parents vote and mobilize to support a particular candidate or issue (McDevitt, 2005). Their initial exposure to Canadian politics comes when a new immigrant moves to Canada, and immigrants may have more affinity for the government of the day at the time of immigration (Blais, 2005; Ramakrishnan et al, 2009) This suggests that many members of Canada’s ethnic minority communities have a “default” affiliation with the Liberal party, who are associated with Canada’s multiculturalism policies and more open approaches to immigration (Black, 2009). In the sections that follow, this paper looks at the results of the 2011 federal election to see whether the Conservative victory in 2011 was associated with more support from immigrant communities, how immigrant voting patterns have changed since the 2008 federal election, whether they are consistent with the 2011 and 2007 Ontario elections and the 2010 Toronto mayoral election, and how the ethnic vote influenced the 2010 Toronto municipal election
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