Battle for a Tory redoubt
Tight races shaping up as all three major parties court votes in the multicultural suburban 905 belt
National Post columnist John Ivison is travelling across Canada to chronicle how election battles are unfolding by region. Today, he tackles the vote-rich 905 region around Toronto.
According to one school of thought, a “big shift” has taken place in Canadian politics that has seen real electoral power move to the waves of immigrants who live in the suburbs of our big cities. Those new Canadians bring with them conservative values that will ensure the Conservatives become the “perpetually dominant” party, proponents argue.
Anyone who buys such a monolithic view of the migrant mosaic should visit Brampton East, a new riding in the vote-rich 905 belt around Toronto.
On a dreary Tuesday evening, Harbal jit Singh Kahlon’s New Democratic Party campaign office resembles a youth drop-in centre, bursting with energetic and enthusiastic South Asian volunteers. Some have donated 500 hours of volunteer service, far beyond the 40 hours their school diploma requires.
It’s too bad for Kahlon 15-year-olds can’t vote.
Their youthful intensity is consistent with the riding that was carved from the old seat of Bramalea-Gore-Malton.
Both ridings are very young (the median age is 34), very brown (60 per cent South Asian) and highly aspirational.
The reason Brampton has two new ridings is obvious to anyone who drives around the old “flower town of Canada” (so called because of its greenhouse industry). Brampton has seen its population explode from 325,000 a decade ago to 524,000.
Brampton East represents the best chance for an NDP win in this corner of greater Toronto.
Kahlon is canvassing in a subdivision in Gore that appears to be almost 100-per-cent South Asian — a mix of Punjabis, Gujaratis and Sri Lankans. Each of the neat semidetached homes has at least two cars — some have three, with one parked on the path to the front door.
Watching the NDP candidate on the doorsteps explodes the idea the Conservatives have the new Canadian vote locked up. “I don’t want to go with Harper at all,” says one Indian woman.
The Tories are competitive in the three Brampton seats they currently hold — Parm Gill in Brampton North, Bal Gosal in Brampton Centre and Kyle Seeback in Brampton South — while Brampton East feels like a three-way race between 33-yearold business consultant Kahlon, 29-year-old Bay Street lawyer Liberal Raj Grewal, and Conservative Naval Bajaj, a former president of the Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
A new poll puts the NDP in third, but on the ground their supporters’ passion is palpable and could produce an upset. At the very least, they are building a machine for next time.
The prospects for the New Democrats have been boosted by the redrawn boundaries and the success of Jagmeet Singh, who was narrowly defeated by Gosal in 2011 but bounced back to win a provincial seat and is now the deputy leader of the NDP at Queen’s Park. Dapper in a fitted suit and purple turban, he joins Kahlon and his own brother Gurratan on the canvass.
“I’ll vote for you,” one woman tells Kahlon. “Jagmeet did a really good job.” On the doorsteps, Kahlon takes careful aim at the Liberals for supporting the Conservative anti-terror legislation.
There is a sense of excitement in the NDP camp aided greatly by Jagmeet Singh’s star power and the small army of youthful volunteers. But the backdrop is a national NDP campaign that seems stalled, and provincial polls that suggest the New Democrats are trailing the Conservatives and Liberals badly in Ontario.
Raj Grewal’s campaign is similarly staffed by young, highly talented South Asians. Unlike his rival, he has deep roots in the riding. His father was a taxi driver who came to Canada in the 1970s and saw his son graduate from Schulich business school and Osgoode Hall Law School.
“For his son to have a chance to sit in the House of Commons is like a fairy story. But the Harper decade has made that story more difficult to achieve,” Grewal says.
His pitch to voters leans heavily on doubling the number of family reunification applications and investments in infrastructure to reduce commute times.
(Tory candidate Bajaj was not made available for an interview.)
It’s no surprise the issues encountered on the doorsteps of Brampton East are shared in the riding to its immediate south, the re-drawn constituency of Mississauga-Malton where former Liberal MP Navdeep Bains is likely to face stiff competition from ethnic newspaper publisher Conservative Jagdish Grewal.
The riding may not rank among the most scenic in Canada, but it is an economic hub, containing Pearson airport and three 400-series highways.
Bains spends most mornings handing out “Tired of your long commute?” flyers at the local GO train station, highlighting the investments in public transit the Liberals are promising. Family reunification is also a priority.
“But we’re doing it through an economic lens. When parents or grandparents come over, they play an instrumental role in economic success. My parents both worked, so my grandparents looked after me. Family reunifications is important for family success and the Conservatives have shut the doors,” he says.
Jagdish Grewal says the Liberals are “raising false hopes” with their inflated immigration promises. The daily Punjabi newspaper publisher, who was once beaten at gunpoint for his anti-extremist views, says the Conservatives have done a lot of work to improve an immigration system that was dogged by backlogs and fraudulent marriages.
He says many people remain unhappy with Bains, who lost to former Conservative Eve Adams in the riding, then called Mississauga-Brampton South.
“When they brought in same-sex marriage legislation, many in the Sikh community asked Navdeep not to vote for it. He didn’t listen and that is why the majority of Sikh organizations still hold a grudge against him.”
Despite the innate conservatism of many ethnic communities, Bains is confident the Liberals will sweep through Brampton and Mississauga.
He may be right. The 11 ridings in Brampton and Mississauga often move in lockstep federally and provincially — all eight went to the Conservatives in 2011.
But the idea of a Brampton/Mississauga sweep ignores the prospect for vote splits between Liberals and New Democrats, which created the conditions for a blue wave through the 905 region last time.
It also neglects the power of incumbency — both of sitting MPs and of the government itself.
In a coffee shop in downtown Brampton, two residents extol the virtues of the local MP, Kyle Seeback, for his work in the community.
Further south, Stella Ambler is the Conservative MP for Mississauga-Lakeshore, a riding that has more in common with next-door Oakville than its Mississauga neighbours. Voters tend to be older, white (the largest ethnic group is Polish) and more established.
Her closest rival is likely to be Liberal Sven Spengemann, a lawyer who immigrated from Germany when he was 14 and spent seven years as house counsel for the UN in Baghdad.
He says there is “tremendous appetite for change” in the riding, and the Liberal plan for tax cuts and targeted infrastructure spending is receiving a positive reception.
Ambler says she was hearing the “time for change” mantra at the doors in August.
“But we’re now hearing that things have evolved a little now people have given it some sober second thought. Many have come to the conclusion that change for change’s sake is not a good thing,” she says.
Canvassing in a middle-class culde-sac just off the Queen Elizabeth Way, the bubbly Ambler encounters seniors Flo and Mary.
“She’s got our votes. She’s very down to earth and very personable,” says Flo.
“Harper has his faults, but give the choice of the three leaders, God help us. I like the way he represents the country and I appreciate his experience,” says Mary.
Chris Moher, a 55-year-old welder in the aerospace industry with a new red F150 truck sitting in his driveway, tells Ambler he will take a lawn sign. “A lot of people have got a real hate on for Harper but I don’t know why. He’s the best prime minister in my lifetime. Tell me another one?”
He says he is not “100-per-cent locked in” but sounds very much as if he is. “I don’t believe in voting for someone on the basis of their father’s name. I don’t believe Trudeau has the parts. As for Mulcair — he’s a very smart man but he’s running for the wrong party.”
It’s not an opinion that will resonate with the teenage progressives in Brampton East, but it is evidence the views in this broad swath of seats are more diverse than the pundits and pollsters might imagine.
It also suggests that, while the Conservatives may not be perpetually dominant in the suburbs, they’re not dead yet either.
He’s the best prime minister in my lifetime.
Tell me another one?