Photo courtesy of B.C. NDP
With B.C. elections less than a month away, political parties are gearing up for a tough fight on May 14, and the recent B.C. Liberals “Multicultural Strategy” scandal has raised questions about the importance of the ethnic vote.
“Anywhere where you have significant ethnic blocs or groups or populations from different countries, you have parties that are trying to reach out and appeal to those voters,” says Paul Prosperi, Langara political science department coordinator, who explains that it’s natural for parties to reach out to different constituencies and different groups.
But, according to Prosperi, it’s not always easy to determine what factors influence voter behavior. The Liberal party, he says, has traditionally been good at wooing immigrant populations to vote for them, but that’s been changing in recent years.
In a study done after the 2011 federal elections, Capturing Change (and Stability) in the 2011 Campaign, Stuart Soroka et al. found that immigrant votes for Conservatives were down slightly. But, when looking at overall distribution of the votes, there wasn’t much difference between immigrant and non-immigrant votes.
Prosperi explains that there are initial differences in voting behaviour among people from different political traditions. For example, someone from communist China will have a different political outlook than someone from India, the largest democracy in the world. But those initial differences diminish the longer someone stays in the country.
More important indicators for voter behaviour, Prosperi adds, are factors such as age, education and socio-economic status. But, he cautions, these are only tools for predicting behaviour and not an exact science.
“One of the things that we’ve seen in the research is, after a certain amount of time, once somebody has lived in this country for a number of years, the differences are quite small,” says Prosperi.
Harsha Walia, a young writer and activist who works primarily in Downtown Eastside immigrant communities, recognizes this and warns against grouping immigrants together when it comes to predicting voting trends.
“I actually am really cautious about assuming that entire [ethnic] communities want the same thing especially when those communities are so large. They live in completely different geographic areas,” says Walia.
She believes people vote based on an entire platform, not just on a single issue, and it’s difficult to say that a particular ethnic community will vote a particular way.
Despite any attempt of government to appeal to ethnic voters, other current issues for immigrants remain, and that has some young Canadians hesitating to cast any vote at all.
Amir Bajehkian, a current student at BCIT who moved here from Iran in 2003, describes himself as left-leaning. But he hasn’t decided yet if he’s voting next month. As a young student, Bajehkian expresses dissatisfaction about the city’s high cost of living, and is disappointed that education is not a priority in any of the parties’ platforms. As an aircraft maintenance engineer, Bajehkian worries that he won’t be able to find a job in B.C. after he graduates.
“Neither party has students [or]youth on their radar,” he says. “Generally speaking, life in Vancouver is really expensive and unaffordable for young people and it’s becoming more and more exclusive.”
Walia, although active in politics, doesn’t always choose to vote.“I look for people who represent social justice issues – not just social justice for immigrants…but for all people,” she says.
