Immigrants Have A Voice

And trying to rationalize why they don't excercise their right to vote is a strawman. If you look at the face of Toronto City Council it certainly doesn't represent the diversity of the population but that could change if immigrants did get out and vote which might encourage members of their community to run for public office.

Without a voice at the polls
Few immigrants, non-whites vote in city elections: Report
Oct. 13, 2006. 01:00 AM
LAURIE MONSEBRAATEN
STAFF REPORTER

If you are an immigrant and also happen to be non-white, chances are high that you didn't vote in the 2003 municipal elections.

That's the finding of a new study on municipal franchise and social inclusion in Toronto to be released today. The study by Ryerson University urban politics professor Myer Siemiatycki is the first in Canada to look at voter demographics at the municipal level.

The report shows that in Toronto, where a disappointing 38 per cent of voters turned up at the polls in 2003, immigrants and visible minorities voted in significantly lower numbers than white Canadian-born residents — regardless of their socio-economic status.

In the past, income, home ownership and university education were considered the clearest markers of a likely voter, Siemiatycki said.

"But this study shows ethnicity and place of origin have become the new predictors of franchise."

Siemiatycki noted the same trend in the 2003 provincial election, when the turnout in 11 Toronto ridings with above-average immigrant populations ranked among the lowest in Ontario.

"As low as voter turnout is among native-born Canadians ... it's lower among immigrants and especially for recent immigrants," said Siemiatycki, who conducted the study on behalf of the Inclusive Cities project, a cross-Canada initiative to encourage social inclusion.

"There clearly is a disconnect between immigrants — and particularly recent immigrants — and our electoral system and processes," he said.

Siemiatycki, who has long suspected that newcomer and visible-minority voters were staying away from the polls, used City of Toronto demographic data on 140 neighbourhoods and cross-referenced it with polling-station results from 2003 to test his theory.

He found to his surprise that turnout rates among eligible voters were 65 per cent higher in neighbourhoods where most voters are white and Canadian-born than in communities with high percentages of immigrant and visible-minority citizens.

Neighbourhoods with the lowest turnout include such high-immigrant areas as Rexdale's Jamestown, Mount Dennis in the old borough of York, the Scarborough communities of Malvern and Agincourt, Kensington-Chinatown in Toronto, and Flemingdon Park in North York.

Turnout averaged about 28 per cent in those communities.

Neighbourhoods with the highest voter turnout tended to be affluent, predominantly white areas like the Kingsway, Leaside, Lawrence Park, Bloor West Village, Riverdale and High Park. Here, turnout averaged about 47 per cent.

"In Toronto, voter-turnout patterns mirror the mapping of immigrant, visible-minority and income distributions," says Siemiatycki, who also heads Ryerson's graduate program in immigrant and settlement studies. "But by far the strongest correlations were immigrant and visible-minority status."

The study didn't surprise Peter Lam, president of the Chinese Canadian Civic Alliance.

"For the first 10 years, most immigrants are struggling to make a living and don't have the time to get involved with politics."

Immigrants from Hong Kong and mainland China come from colonial states or totalitarian regimes where there is no real culture of democracy, said Lam.

"For many immigrants, politics is corrupt and the people who participate are crooks."But that is changing, said Lam, an immigration consultant who came to Canada in the 1960s.

His group plans to stage a civic-engagement forum Sunday, aimed at raising awareness of the municipal election among Chinese-Canadians. About 15 candidates of Asian origin from across the GTA have been invited to discuss local issues with reporters from the Chinese-language media.

The day will end with a banquet for about 500, with mayoral candidates Jane Pitfield and David Miller expected to speak.

"Ten years ago, we might not have been able to organize something like this," Lam said. " ... But interest is growing."

Satwinder Gosal, a Mississauga lawyer well connected in Greater Toronto's Sikh community, said many South Asians aren't interested in local politics.

"South Asians are very politically active, but they aren't interested in local government. Even though local politics is where real changes are felt first, it just doesn't carry the prestige in their eyes," he said.

Siemiatycki says local politicians must do more to spur immigrants to participate, as both candidates and voters in municipal elections.

"It starts with deeming it (lower voter turnout) unacceptable and identifying tangible, community-based interventions that could make a difference."

Siemiatycki's study can be found on the Inclusive Cities website at http://www.inclusivecities.ca