Do Canadians more readily see a foreign-born citizen as "still one of us" than many other countries?

[ShonTron]

I'd say the "nativist" wing is a very small minority of the Quebec sovereignty/nationalist movement. They generally don't really care where your family comes from or about your ethnic background, as long as you can speak French. If you do, you're "part of the gang".

Unless you're wearing a hijab, of course.

 

[wild goose chase]

As for the Fords being in the same ideological camp as Trump, the National Front and UKIP, I'd say no, they have far too multicultural base of support. Though they're certainly right-wing populists with a personality cult.

Note however that they have no influence on provincial and federal politics. The "Ford Nation" strongholds of Etobicoke, York and Scarborough voted heavily for Kathleen Wynne's and Justin Trudeau's Liberals, in spite of the fact that the Fords campaigned heavily against them.

So I stand by my point that I don't see a Trump/National Front/UKIP type movement really taking off in Canadian politics.

In light of the Ontario election, would the odds of this kind of movement taking off now be higher?

 

[Admiral Beez]

Do Canadians more readily see a foreign-born citizen as "still one of us" than many other countries?

Actually I find that it's the inverse, in that foreign-born citizens see themselves as outsiders or not one of us, thus the hyphenated identities people cling to. I'm born in the UK, but never self identify as a British-Canadian. I have a British origin certainly, and value that part of myself, but don't wear it on my sleeve.

 

[wild goose chase]

Data from 2016, but just by going off this, there are some western countries that put less emphasis on birthplace as defining national identity, but Canada is still portrayed (still at this time) as a country that's relatively pro-immigrant relative to most of the western world.

Source: http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/02/01...one-of-us/pg-02-01-17_national-identity-0-04/

 

[King of Kensington]

Looking at provincial results, at least one visible minority group, Chinese Canadians, voted overwhelmingly for the PCs. It's hard to imagine a racialized group voting en masse for Trump, UKIP, the National Front etc. So that's a unique aspect of Ford populism.

South Asians and Blacks I suspect went NDP though.

 

[wild goose chase]

Looking at provincial results, at least one visible minority group, Chinese Canadians, voted overwhelmingly for the PCs. It's hard to imagine a racialized group voting en masse for Trump, UKIP, the National Front etc. So that's a unique aspect of Ford populism.

South Asians and Blacks I suspect went NDP though.

Chinese Canadians in the GTA seem so strongly PC these days (not sure if it's the case in other places like BC), and they were very pro-Ford Nation in places like Scarborough -- is this a long term trend? Stateside, Asian Americans are getting more Democrat relative to past generations, so it would be a stark contrast if Chinese Canadians are getting more conservative, or more right wing over time, not more left wing, unlike their American counterparts.

I didn't realize that Black Canadians were more pro-NDP in the Ontario election.

Do you think it's a trend that Black Canadians tend to be more "social democratic" or support the NDP more than other groups or non-visible minorities federally or provincially most years? I would have thought they tended to vote Liberal.

Black Americans who were Democrats generally supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, so I thought that the trend of visible minorities being more "centrist left" would also hold in Canada. I thought that NDP voters would have been more either "white working class" (though we don't use the term as much in Canada than stateside) or white, downtown urbanites.

But then again, Black Canadians may be even more left wing than African Americans for a number of reasons -- such as Black Canadians being in more urban areas, but their American counterparts, while also urban also live in large numbers in more rural, southern areas that there's less of a counterpart for.

Maybe older visible minorities are more Liberal and Conservative (many who are immigrants themselves and a bit more socially conservative, or fiscally conservative or centrist) but young visible minorities (university student age or 20 and 30-somethings) I feel are more pro-NDP.

 

[wild goose chase]

I wonder if individual visible minority or immigrant groups in Canada feel more or less solidarity towards one another than in the US.

In the US, even before Trump, but certainly visibly in the time of Trump, when anti-immigrant sentiment is voiced, lots of minority groups on the left seem to find common cause in opposing it. For example, Hispanic Americans and Muslim Americans are united against anti-immigrant sentiment targeted at one another. Non-black American groups who are racial minorities like Hispanic or Asian Americans still support Black Lives Matter in proportions higher than the majority. Groups like Black and Jewish Americans, who haven't been majority or heavily immigrant or foreign-born for many generations, unlike most Hispanic, Asian or Muslim Americans, still sympathize with groups that are attacked for their immigrant "otherness". American minorities seem to feel like an attack on one group is an attack on another and help each other out more than in Canada.

I think Black, South Asian, and Chinese Canadians are less likely to think of themselves as one common "group" that is called "visible minorities" or "racial minorities" than their US counterparts, as evidenced by how each group votes quite differently and has different political leanings, unlike the US where the minorities are much more solidly Democrat. However, the younger generation of visible minority Canadians, based on my impression, probably are much more left-wing and do have a more strong sense of solidarity.

 

[King of Kensington]

Chinese Canadians in the GTA seem so strongly PC these days (not sure if it's the case in other places like BC), and they were very pro-Ford Nation in places like Scarborough -- is this a long term trend?

Yes, I think so. They were able to get 40% of the vote in Agincourt in a recent federal by-election when Scheer was basically unknown abd Trudeau was still extremely popular.

I didn't realize that Black Canadians were more pro-NDP in the Ontario election.

Do you think it's a trend that Black Canadians tend to be more "social democratic" or support the NDP more than other groups or non-visible minorities federally or provincially most years? I would have thought they tended to vote Liberal.

There's no hard data on this, but just a guess based on riding results. While Etobicoke North went PC, the Ford name didn't carry over as much where he wasn't personally on the ballot. York South-Weston and Humber River-Black Creek (which are also heavily Black) went NDP even though they were part of "Ford Nation" municipally.

As for the Liberals - if you hadn't noticed their vote collapsed in the last election. I'd be surprised if a plurality of any demographic group voted Liberal.

 

[Johnny Au]

I'm very pro-NDP.

However, the rest of my family, including my brother, usually vote for the Conservatives. Last month's election though, my parents voted NDP and my brother abstained.

Immigrants to Canada from the Sinosphere are much more likely to retain their xenophobic views than many other visible minority groups (including Chinese Canadians born in Canada).

 

[SunriseChampion]

Immigrants to Canada from the Sinosphere are much more likely to retain their xenophobic views than many other visible minority groups (including Chinese Canadians born in Canada).

In my experience, immigrants in general tend to retainment of previously held xenophobic views.

 

[kEiThZ]

Asian Americans are getting more Democrat relative to past generations,

I wouldn't be too sure about that:

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2015/10/03/the-model-minority-is-losing-patience

And while they voted against Trump, in general they still lean Republican.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...are-diverse-but-unified-against-donald-trump/

What's unique in Canada are several factors:

1) Immigrants tend to face less discrimination than the US.
2) Our immigrants are less economically diverse. We don't have massive swathes of illegal immigrants. We also don't have hoardes of H1B type immigrants all pulling in six figures. Our immigrants by and large tend to be middle class or just above working class.
3) The competition isn't as fierce in Canada. You think getting your kid into U of T is hard? Try getting them into Stanford or Harvard or UCLA, when those schools are actively discriminating against Asian-Americans under the guise of diversity.

All these mean that our immigrants can be somewhat left leaning. If we start ending up in a situation like the US, where immigrants actively feel they are being penalized for having done well, they'll start voting Conservative too.

I'd argue a far more dangerous trend is ethnic vote bank politics, where candidate success is not based on party at all, but a candidate's ethnicity. That does not bode well for the GTA and for politics in general.

 

[Admiral Beez]

3) The competition isn't as fierce in Canada. You think getting your kid into U of T is hard? Try getting them into Stanford or Harvard or UCLA, when those schools are actively discriminating against Asian-Americans under the guise of diversity.

How is denying a portion of Asian Americans any worse than blocking a portion of white Americans in the name of diversity? Affirmative action is about gaming the admissions or hiring process to meet the stated demographic goals. If you have too many Asians and not enough blacks, you game the system to deny asians and approve more blacks. That's the very nature of affirmative action.