Immigrant Voting and the Appeal of Progressive and Conservative Politics in Canada
My current research examines the political ideas and experiences of racialized immigrants. I am interested in how former noncitizens make sense of and use their subsequent privileges when they become citizens. As new Canadians, what political platforms and figures do they vote for and support?
This inquiry is critical in the context of Canada, where nation-building relies on the continued immigration of new settlers. Over the next three years, the Canadian government plans to admit over 1.4 million new immigrants. At this rate, one in two Canadians is likely to be an immigrant or the child of an immigrant by 2036.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, Canada has seen a sharp growth in the number of ridings (or electoral districts) where minority groups are in the majority. In 2021, most immigrants to Canada lived in large urban centres. Where I live and work—the Greater Toronto Area—is a top choice for immigrants like myself. Indeed, close to half of the GTA’s population are immigrants, of which most are from Asia, particularly India and China. Also, immigrants comprise nearly half of Toronto’s nonwhite residents. What does this all mean? It means that ongoing settler colonialism has produced a society where racialized groups, particularly immigrants, have become key voters in the nation’s most important political battlegrounds.
At the same time, voting trends are changing. Although they were once surefire supporters of the centrist Liberal Party, immigrants are increasingly casting their vote for parties on the left and right. While other scholars have documented this polarization, there has not been a systematic, bottom-up study investigating why this shift away from the centre is happening.
Supported by the University of Toronto’s School of Cities Urban Challenges Grant (2023-24), I am conducting life history interviews with two key groups of voters residing in the GTA: naturalized immigrants and second-generation Canadians (the children of foreign-born parents). The project focuses on people of South Asian, Chinese, and European descent because these three categories constitute Canada’s largest ethnoracial groups.
My study will shed light on 1) why immigrant votes are polarizing, 2) whether and how race, class, and other factors affect voting patterns, and 3) if and how immigrants’ political ideas diverge from those of their second-generation Canadian-born children.
These questions are sociologically significant because, as with my previous work, they help address how domination and inequality are reproduced and resisted through everyday political behaviour. My previous work primarily investigated this question from the perspective of dominant, majority groups. By contrast, this study will also largely focus on the ideas and lived experiences of minority groups. It will elucidate how political projects—that take hierarchies and inequality as natural and inevitable—foster support or opposition across different social strata.