With his victory over the uninspiring and unprepared Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party of Canada in 2011 (which was still reeling from the fiasco of the flaccid Dion leadership), the Conservative Party of Canada achieved something that was, in the words of John Ibbitson in his new tome Harper,
"unmatched by any other conservative party anywhere in the world. They had become a conservative party that attracted the support of large numbers of immigrants. This was a remarkable, though precarious, achievement. Precarious because to sustain its popularity, the new seemingly natural governing party needed to preserve and deepen that bond, which is no easy feat."
On the eve of election 2015, will the CPC succeed in preserving that bond?
How important is the immigrant vote anyway? As Ibbitson notes, Canada is so
"heavily immigrant that no federal party could hope to come to power without winning a plurality of the immigrant vote."
The nub of his argument? Muslims only make up 3% of the Canadian populace and the HSBC (Hindus Sikhs Buddhists and [ethnic] Christians) are with Harper and with him more so than the general populace. Saunders thinks -- and there's polling data in support -- that new Canadian voters (a term I prefer over "immigrant voters") other than Canadian Muslims are still with the Harper Conservatives:
...In the 2011 federal election, the Tories attracted 42 per cent of the vote from foreign-born Canadians, higher than their 37-per-cent share among native-born Canadians. ...
...after accomplishing this, Mr. Harper’s party has run a 2015 campaign built on ethnic and religious distrust, fear and divisiveness. By turning a non-existent issue – involving a miniscule subgroup, women who wear the niqab – into a major campaign issue, and by tying immigration and terrorism policies together rhetorically, the Conservatives have stoked anti-immigrant sentiments and religious intolerance....
...This does not appear to have cost the Conservatives support among immigrants and members of most minorities....
Read that last excerpted sentence again. It seems that the Harper strategy has succeeded not only despite dividing new Canadians against each other by playing to the hereditary enmity between the HSBC and Muslims but because of it.
Now, Saunders argues that new Canadians do not bring their ethno-political divisions to Canada with him. I completely disagree. In a 2007 piece for the Calgary Herald, I commented that Canadian [immigration] policy should recognize that new arrivals bring with them their prejudices and hatreds; their nativist sentiments. That seems to be borne out with Air India bombing, the murder of Tara Singh Hayer in Surrey, BC, and the Shafia murder trial (to name but a few examples). It may also be borne out if HSBC (Hindu Sikh Buddhist [ethnic] Christian) new Canadians vote for the CPC after sustained Muslim baiting and scapegoating by that self-same party.
To me it's clear, this election has seen the CPC try (and perhaps succeed) in stoking the perhaps natural distrust by the HSBC against Muslims. We have reached the nadir of politics in Canada.
Was it necessary?
I don't think so. Harper won the suburban (heavily ethnic ridings) surrounding Toronto in 2008 and 2011 without resorting to scraping the bottom of the barrel in race/religion baiting. He did it through the tireless efforts of Jason Kenney, who has probably seen and eaten enough samosas for this lifetime and seven reincarnations. That outreach was about communication and explication of policies that do resonate with new Canadians (like lower taxes, smaller government and socially conservative views).
The messaging by the CPC in this interminable 2015 election is quite different from that outreach.
What is the actual record for this government on immigration after the inroads made in 2011? I have written in the past on the Harper Government's record on immigration and his dealings with new Canadian voters; this included "Ten Years of Shifting Sands for Refugees and Immigrants" where my associate, Ram Sankaran and I noted the following:
Unfortunately, while the Harper government has played politics, immigrants, refugees and ordinary Canadian Muslims have paid the price.
...
The mercantile mentality of this government has extended even to the quintessential right, that of Canadian citizenship. In essence, citizenship is a commodity for this cabal of merchants, and the way to increase the value of a commodity is to decrease supply. Citizenship under the Harper government is harder to get and easier to lose.
...
Keeping in line with this government's pro-business outlook (businesses of course want a stable, compliant work force), the temporary foreign worker program was dramatically expanded. At the same time, no thought or consideration was spared for the tens of thousands of "low skill" foreign workers for whom there is no pathway for permanent residence (in fairness, no pathway was afforded by the previous government either). Low skill temporary foreign workers remain the coolie, bonded labour, with no hope to remain permanently and with explicit limits on their stay here of a maximum 4 years.
Numbers were crunched even when it came to filial obligations and affections. Kenney suspended the family class (parents and grandparents) for two years, noting that older immigrants cost the system hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care costs. ...
Collectively, these examples suggest that the Harper government’s immigration policy is, for the most part, built on ideology, politics and anecdotal "evidence" ... The Harper government has tried to instill fear in ordinary Canadians that outsiders, such as refugees, foreign workers or more recent immigrants, are abusing the system. This fear and the resulting indignation are then used to pass measures that are incoherent, mean-spirited, and short-sighted. Any short-term political gain achieved through scapegoating immigrants, refugees and minorities comes at a high cost. It has undermined the rule of law and our multicultural and humanitarian tradition. ...
What part, if any, of the obvious and clumsy pandering resonate or harm the CPC with new Canadians?
It's difficult to say.
When I had a weekly radio show on the largely South Asian 106.7FM here in Calgary with my co-host, Andy Hayher, I was a little surprised that new Canadians seemed, by and large OK with restrictions on the family class (and thus my belief that the restriction of same will not sway new Canadians). New Canadians appreciate good economic stewardship, and Kenney was able to explain clearly the costs involved in parent and grandparent sponsorship (Approximately one quarter went on social assistance after the sponsorship period elapsed and health care costs exceed $200,000).
We interviewed Devinder Shory as well, the author of the original version of Bill C-24, and again, my sense is that this is an issue that seems Muslim (and even more specifically Pakistan-Canadian) specific. HSBC, even Sikhs with their religious proscriptions of unshorn hair, the kirpan, and head coverings (is this a Barbaric Cultural Practice?) seem to be able to draw a distinction between that paraphernalia and the niqab.
On both issues, I actually think the HSBC are with the CPC.
I think the Harper government has elevated voter identification to an art form and they know precisely what they are doing with both their legislation and talk of security (and overt discouragement of Sunni and Shia refugee resettlement from Syria that we learned of late last week).
Lest anyone think that I am simply a knee jerk partisan afflicted with Harper Derangement Syndrome (a term coined by Lorne Gunter) and simply an immigration lawyer with an axe to grind let the record show that I (along with my co-author, Nadeem Esmail) examined the cuts to refugee health coverage to refugee claimants with a view to add more light than heat to the issue. I also examined his appointment of Russ Brown to the Supreme Court and the over the top reaction to the same by Elizabeth May. Further, it's quite obvious that the CPC, with its multi-level changes to immigration policy have lined my pocket. It would actually be in my financial interest to have Messrs. Harper and Kenney continue on their path to remake Canada.
In any event, despite my antipathy towards some of Jason Kenney's transformative changes to immigration, I have given him credit whenever and wherever credit is due. After a revolving door of immigration Ministers by the previous ruling Liberal government and the the Harper minority government, Kenney took over that department literally and figuratively. While I disagree with him often, I do respect him. I can't say the same for his successor. I'm looking forward to meeting the new Minister of Citizenship of Immigration.
What should alarm "new stock" Canadians is that the politics that the Harper Government has played exclusively with Muslims, is a risible stain on it's record. The response to both Zunera Ishaq and the treatment meted out to Rania El-Alloul by a uninformed Quebec jurist was pathetic (although in the case of the former, the Harper government chose to double down into active opposition):
...This discourse — in reality, dog-whistle politics — comes from the top: Harper and his lieutenant, Kenney. It extends to Kenney’s successor, Chris Alexander, an ambitious politician, and a former diplomat with time in Afghanistan, who himself seemingly intentionally conflated the niqab and the hijab, earlier this year.
...
What was the response to this blatant breach of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Here was surely a teachable moment. The minister of state for multiculturalism, Tim Uppal, a bearded, turbaned Sikh (whose wife is a lawyer for the Department of Justice and wears a religious head covering) has experienced racism personally. This was a perfect opportunity for him to put in his own personal story, discuss his adherence to the Sikh tradition, and the hurdles he himself has overcome, before all Canadians, and stridently defend access to justice by a religious and visible minority.
...
The short-term gain in playing to the gallery comes at a cost. It undermines the rule of law, encourages executive overreach and creates a false conflict between our secular institutions and the religious freedom accorded to the people of this country.
Either Tim Uppal has zero initiative, or he simply doesn't have the confidence of Stephen Harper. He has appeared more and more as another CPC wooden ventriloquial figures, sitting on his leader's knee with no voice of his own. This is unfortunate. A Tim Uppal without the figurative (pardon the pun) marionnette lines could have been a shining example of the success of Canadian multiculturalism to the South Asian diaspora.
The inroads that the Harper government made with Jason Kenney at the helm may well be washed away in the recent surge by the Liberals (moribund and almost left for dead in 2011, but resurrected by Justin Trudeau who appears to have been badly underestimated by the NDP and the CPC). These inroads by the CPC were nascent and may not survive the sustained messaging against Muslims. Another reason may be Kenney's departure from the portfolio, leaving it in the clearly less capable hands of Alexander, who may end up one of as one of the front bench casualties of this hotly contested election. Another of the CPC casualties may be Tim Uppal himself, also responsible for the "new Canadian" portfolio via Multiculturalism, notwithstanding that he is in a riding in the Conservative heartland and bailiwick.
The denigration of the rights of the Muslim minority is in fact a denigration of the rights of other minorities including that of Hindus, Sikhs, and others. Remember, 150,000 Canadians signed a petition against the wearing of Sikh turbans during RCMP duty. That wasn't so long ago and has clear parallels with the travails of Ishaq and the hijab wearing El-Alloul.
It won't take a lot for the HSBC to clue into that fact; it remains to be seen whether playing one minority off another will succeed or not. If it does, then it's a sad day for Canada.
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