LIBERALS’ LOSS IS NDP’S GAIN
South Asian voting bloc went orange
A range of negative factors that some might call a perfect storm hurt B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark and sharply swung South Asian voters to John Horgan’s New Democratic Party in the May 9 election.
The B.C. Liberals lost all eight Metro Vancouver ridings with large South Asian populations, with political observers saying the governing party failed to connect with voters on both regional issues and worries specific to South Asians. South Asians felt particularly betrayed by the Liberals’ approach to the trucking and taxi industries in which South Asians are predominant, said Kwantlen Polytechnic University political scientist Shinder Purewal and radio host Harjit Singh Gill.
Most of Metro Vancouver’s more than 260,000 South Asians also showed little interest in the B.C. Green party, which means that, unlike in many predominantly white urban ridings, the potential NDP vote was not siphoned off to the third-party Greens.
In north Surrey and North Delta, where South Asians account for 60 to 80 per cent of the population, the NDP took four ridings from the B.C. Liberals, defeating two cabinet ministers, and held on to three others.
The NDP’s George Chow also won Vancouver-Fraserview, which has a sizable South Asian population, defeating Attorney General Suzanne Anton.
“South Asians felt betrayed by the people they had sent to Victoria,” Gill said.
In addition to issues of special concern to South Asians, Gill and Purewal made clear South Asians were miffed with the Liberals because of three key conflicts that cut across ethnic lines.
Like many others in Surrey, they said, South Asians were ticked with the Liberals over the placement of tolls on the Port Mann and proposed future bridges, the thousands of Surrey students who make do with school portables and the Liberals’ abandoned promise to build a second hospital in Surrey.
Gill, the host of a Punjabi- and English-language radio talk show at AM 1550, said his more than 100,000 listeners saw the Liberals as “becoming very arrogant” and under the influence of would-be Punjabi “kingmakers,” insiders who he said manoeuvred to have their favourites acclaimed as candidates without nomination battles.
Gill focused several radio programs on the party’s failure to help thousands of Metro Vancouver truck drivers.
The United Truckers Association, whose membership is predominantly South Asian, publicly hammered the Liberals for abandoning truck drivers.
“They’re going through a very hard time now,” Gill said. Many truckers had gone on strike and “are being exploited by their owners,” he added.
Purewal, who attended UTA meetings as an observer, estimated 80 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s truck and taxi drivers are South Asians. Surrey itself, he said, is home to more than 7,000 truck drivers.
The Liberals’ promise in March to support the arrival of ride-hailing service Uber also aggravated many South Asian taxi drivers, Gill and Purewal said.
Cabinet minister Peter Fassbender, who lost the riding of Surrey-Fleetwood to the NDP’s Jagrup Brar, was particularly targeted for his failure on the transportation file, Purewal said.
Gill and Purewal said South Asians shared the anger of other Surrey residents after the Liberals fell short on a promise to build a second hospital. Residents were especially peeved, he said, by the Liberals’ decision to sell provincially owned land in Surrey that had been set aside for a medical facility. The hospital issue helped the NDP’s Jinny Sims win the once-safe Liberal riding of SurreyPanorama, Purewal said.
Gill said the Liberals’ promise in January to build more permanent classrooms in Surrey came too late to satisfy parents who had grown appalled that 7,000 Surrey students go to schools in portables, more per capita than anywhere in B.C.
In addition, Purewal said Surrey residents are feeling hemmed in by the “Mexican wall” of toll bridges rising south of the municipality, with the Liberals’ proposed Pattullo and Massey bridges scheduled to follow the Port Mann and require toll fees.
“Christy Clark is perceived in Surrey as someone who comes to Vaisakhi parades and smiles, but doesn’t do anything,” Purewal said.
Since so many South Asians own their own homes, have rental units and work in construction, Shinder said, the Liberals’ 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers of single-family homes may have been a minor ingredient working against Clark.
“The first thing South Asians do when they have money is buy homes. They’ve been making money out of rising real estate prices,” he said.
A pre-election Mainstreet Research poll showed yet another factor behind the NDP’s gains: The vast majority of South Asians aren’t drawn to the Green party.
Only seven per cent of decided South Asian voters in B.C. intended to vote for the Greens, according to the April Mainstreet poll. That compared to the provincial average of 19 per cent.
“South Asians are more interested in bread-and-butter issues, like education and health care. They rely on construction and development,” Purewal said.
“They’re more likely to be bluecollar workers.
“They don’t have the luxury of drinking chai lattes downtown and discussing what’s good for the environment.”