Why the Greens don’t attract ethnic voters
Why do Green candidates only win seats in ridings where the vast majority of voters are white?
Federal and B.C. Green party candidates have won election in only one concentrated region of Canada, on Vancouver Island and the Southern Gulf Islands, in ridings that have scant visible minorities compared to most of the country’s cities.
In the Southern Gulf Islands — the heart of the region that handed victories to the lone federal Green MP, leader Elizabeth May, and to B.C. MLA Adam Olsen — only two per cent of residents belong to a minority ethnic group. That compares to 51 per cent of people in Metro Vancouver, where the Greens struggle.
Political observers believe the Greens’ poor showing among immigrants, ethnic Chinese and South Asian voters, and others, is the result of a common perception the party puts environmental protection before economic prosperity.
The Greens have also had fewer resources to woo ethnic voters.
“The first generation of immigrants often leave their homelands for economic reasons,” says Shinder Purewal, a Kwantlen Polytechnic University political scientist. “They’re willing to work in any sector that provides jobs. Early Sikh immigrants, for instance, worked in the lumber industry. Environmentalists calling for preservation of trees were often seen as a threat to their livelihood.”
Purewal routinely hears IndoCanadians remark on how “the Greens would destroy the economy. Not only do they think this would mean lower living standards, it would lead to the state not being able to provide social programs. … Immigrants, who come from countries with almost no social programs, appreciate Canada’s health care and public education, along with workers’ compensation, employment insurance and old age pensions.”
Regardless of which factors are strongest, it’s clear visible minorities in Canada, many of whom are immigrants, are far less inclined to vote Green than are whites.
Along with Green candidates drastically under-performing in ridings in which ethnic groups predominate, polls have revealed the party’s demographic affliction.
A Mainstreet Research poll conducted last year found 21 per cent of Caucasian British Columbians were ready to vote for the Greens. But support for the Greens dropped to eight per cent among ethnic Chinese in B.C., seven per cent among South Asians, 10 per cent among Filipinos and five per cent among Koreans.
The so-called ethnic vote is a major factor in B.C. elections, since at least one in five provincial ridings contain fewer white people than the combined totals of ethnic Chinese, South Asians, Koreans, Filipinos, Koreans, Persians and Pakistanis.
Most people of Chinese origin in B.C. “are still under the impression that economic development and environmental protection are incompatible, or even mutually exclusive,” says Fenella Sung, former radio host of a Chinese-language current affairs program in B.C.
The more than 470,000 ethnic Chinese people in Metro Vancouver, who predominate in ridings in Richmond where the Greens performed badly in last year’s B.C. election, tend to believe, rightly or wrongly, that the Greens are a single-issue party, Sung said.
“Since prosperity is their main priority, they think the environment can take a back seat,” Sung said. Chinese-Canadians generally believe protecting nature is something to be addressed only “after economic growth is sustained and job creation is guaranteed.”
Stefan Jonnson, communications director for the B.C. Greens, acknowledges his three-seat party, which is supporting the NDP government, “has a long way to go to ensure our candidates reflect the true diversity of this province.”
Since the Greens have been small, Jonnson said most candidates have lacked finances to publish Chinese- or Punjabilanguage campaign material or to appear at ethnic events. But that, he said, has been rapidly changing.
The B.C. Greens are stepping up their message to ethnic minorities that protecting the environment does not threaten personal livelihoods, Jonnson said. Rather than exporting resources such as raw logs, for instance, he said the party advocates creating more jobs by milling logs in a “value-added” B.C. economy.
Hamish Telford, a political scientist at the University of the Fraser Valley, said the Greens “have to become a multicultural party if they’re going to break out of Vancouver Island. It’s not a party that speaks to immigrants.”
The tip of Vancouver Island and the Southern Gulf Islands are Green strongholds in part, Telford said, because they’re home to many Caucasians who have moved there from others parts of the province and country “to retire and enjoy the beauty of the place, the peace and outdoors.”
After travelling to the Punjab in India, the homeland of hundreds of thousands of B.C. residents, Telford was strengthened in his perception that “Punjabis are a very political people.” While Sikh and Hindu nationalist parties are notable in the Punjab, he said, there are few signs of an environmental movement.
Since roughly a quarter of the students in Telford’s classrooms on the Abbotsford campus are South Asian, he has learned many are keen about economics, immigration, racism and social programs.
But some hope for the Greens may lie in such students, he said.
“The ones born and raised here tend to skew to the left and to have the same concerns as other young Canadians. Some are interested in the Greens. That’s not so much the case for the older generations.”