BC Election Shows No Party Has Monopoly on Ethnic Voters

A woman walks to a polling station in Vancouver to vote on election day, on Oct. 19, 2024. The Canadian Press/Ethan Cairns

Commentary

On Oct. 19, a nail-biter B.C. election resulted in razor thin margins: 46 seats for the NDP, 45 seats for the Conservatives, and two for the Greens.

This seat breakdown may still change, as 49,000 mail-in and out-of-district votes have yet to be counted. Also up in the air are the results of upcoming recounts, which will take place in two ridings where the B.C. NDP won by fewer than 100 votes.

The election campaign saw its share of negative attacks and digging up past social commentary points and allegations of racism. These attacks were for the most part one-sided, targeting the Conservatives to show them as racist.

Digging up controversial statements has become increasingly common in recent elections. But citizens care about core policy issues, not how someone may have said something by mistake in the past. This was the case among many voters in B.C.’s ethnic minority communities.

Throughout the leadup to the campaign, polling from Mainstreet Research showed little correlation between race and political affiliation—until September, when support for the Conservatives among non-white British Columbians rose dramatically to 50.4 percent.

Mainstreet Research’s polling data held true on election day. In a statement on X, B.C. Conservative executive director Angelo Isidorou trumpeted the party’s strong showing among ethnic minority voters. Isidorou noted that much of the B.C. Conservative team, including himself and John Rustad’s chief of staff Azim Jiwani, come from immigrant backgrounds.

Isidorou went on to triumphantly portray the surge in support for the B.C. Conservatives among immigrants as part of a larger political trend: “Conservatives across the Western World need to recognize that immigrants actually share a vision for prosperity and tradition.”

Prosperity and tradition are well-chosen words to describe John Rustad’s campaign. The B.C. Conservatives’ bread-and-butter economic platform—rent rebates, tax credits for family caregivers, help for the mining and forestry industries, a lighter regulatory burden on house builders—was paired with traditionalist policies like putting violent offenders “behind bars where they belong” and prioritizing “learning over ideology” in schools.

A platform that emphasized the economic well-being of the average citizen while rejecting ideology appealed to large segments of voters of all backgrounds. This coalition included ethnic minorities.

What lesson can be drawn for other political parties in Canada? Mainly, one that parties should already know: Never take any demographic for granted. Communities are not locked down for good; they always have the potential to shift towards a party whose values they align with.

This phenomenon is also at play in the United States among Hispanics—an ethnic minority that many have long assumed would vote for the Democrats in perpetuity. A poll by Axios reveals that many Hispanics support the very policies which those on the other side of the spectrum portray as racist: 42 percent support building a wall or fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, and 38 percent support deporting illegal immigrants.

Political strategists should avoid making the mistaken assumption that people from immigrant backgrounds automatically support unrestricted immigration. In a recent Leger poll, race was not a significant factor in predicting support for immigration—66 percent of white Canadians and 61 percent of non-white Canadians reported feeling that immigration levels are too high.

In Canada, it has long been conventional political wisdom that ethnic minorities can only be won over by pandering. Across the country, this has resulted in cynical campaigns characterized by endless photo-ops at cultural events.

This sends the infantilizing message that all a Canadian politician has to do to win over immigrant voters is to visit their place of worship, sample their food, and learn a few phrases in their country of origin’s language.

The truth is that ethnic minority voters—like all voters—are influenced to a significant degree by a party’s policy and vision. Politicians across the country should think less about how many visits they make to the local gurdwara, or how many Chinese restaurants they dine in, and instead seriously consider whether their platform helps ordinary men and women of all backgrounds and rejects the woke ideology pushed by a small minority of progressive activists.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.