Immigrants Show They Like Political Conservatism In Canada

Immigrants Show They Like Political Conservatism In Canada

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — As Barack Obama looks south to reinvigorate Hispanic votes for his Democratic Party of Death, he might consider casting a wary eye north, where legal immigrants in Canada helped deliver a solid, surprising victory for that nation’s Conservative Party.

Obama, whose Democrats failed to pass “ amnesty” for tens of millions of illegal immigrants when they had large majorities in both houses of Congress during the first two years of his presidency, headed to Texas on May 10 to try to whip up fervor for his own political well- being if nothing more.

Neither did the now- gone Democratic congressional majority approve the “ DREAM Act” for younger illegal aliens in the United States.

A key part of Obama’s political calculation is that the votes of overwhelmingly Catholic Latinos, uncatechized by the Church, willhelp him continue forcing massive abortion onto the nation, as well as his promoting homosexual deviancy and socialized medical rationing to deny health care.

But only a week before Obama’s mocking words in El Paso about illegal immigration, the Canadian federal election of May 2 swept theConservatives into clear majority control of Parliament, in part because of an open appeal to newer Canadian citizens’ sense of traditionalvalues. Canada’s National Post newspaper quickly commented: “Canada’s liberal journalists may be aghast at the prospect of Ottawa soliciting immigrant support on the basis of ‘ social conservatism’ — but the fact is that many new Canadians are more religious and family- oriented than the rest of us. And the Conservatives owe no apologies for appealing to them on this basis.

“ Certainly,” thePost continued, “ it is preferable for our government to tap into immigrants’ shared sense of traditional Canadian values than to treat them through the lens of victimhood and identity politics.”

Rob Haney, chairman of the Maricopa County, Ariz., Republican Party, headquartered in Phoenix, has close Canadian relatives living in Ontario province, whom he phoned.

Haney, a conservative activist, toldThe Wanderer that from what he read of the Canadian results, the difference was that “ where previously the liberal parties pandered to the immigrants with handouts and benefits, the Conservatives made a special appeal this time based on conservative values, with which most of the immigrants felt aligned.

“ They made a special effort this time to attract the immigrant vote, whereas previously they had not done so,” he said.

A Toronto daily paper quoted a Conservative official, “ If you look at the ads we ran in Mandarin, Punjabi, and Cantonese, it’s exactly that. Vote your values.”

In a May 10 telephone interview, Jim Roberts, a research fellow at the politically conservative, Washington- based Heritage Foundation, told The Wanderer that “ I do see where they [ Canadian Conservatives] courted the [immigrant] vote and caught the Liberals asleep at the switch.”

The Liberals, he said, assumed these voters were theirs.

The time comes, Roberts said, when voting groups notice they’ve been taken advantage of. “ Any group that is taken for granted will eventually figure that out.”

The Canadian Conservatives “ really made inroads” with the East Indian vote, Roberts said. He noted a similar conservative sentiment in the U. S. shown by the Indian- heritage governors of two southern states, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Nikki Haley of South Carolina.

Roberts is research fellow for economic freedom and growth at Heritage’s Center for International Trade and Economics. He previously served for 25 years with the U.S. State Department.

Like the Canadian immigrants, Roberts said, “ Hispanics as a group tend to be more socially conservative,” and, as the Hispanics meet with economic success, they become more politically conservative.

He recalled that in the U. S., the Democratic Party successfully fought against conservative Republican Miguel Estrada’s nomination to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by President George W. Bush “ because they saw him as a threat,” a man who could provide a conservative role model to other Hispanics, both by serving on that bench and as a possible future Supreme Court nominee.

“ Fortunately, there are more Miguel Estradas out there,” said Roberts, adding that the Democrats’ opposition to him was “ just disgusting politics” because he was “ extremely well qualified. Those kinds of tactics will only work for so long.”

Smart And Effective

News reports noted the Canadian Conservatives’ entrepreneurial tone to up- and- comers, as well as an active outreach.

Under the headline “ How courting the immigrant vote paid off for the Tories,” Toronto’s Globe and Mailreported: “ In one day during the 2011 election campaign, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney attended 15 different chai parties hosted by Indo- Canadian voters in Brampton West, Ontario. That’s just a snapshot of his epic cross- Canada campaigning, but it’s indicative of the stamina and persistence of the Conservative point man for ethnic communities.

“ He and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have transformed their party from one that was perceived as hostile to new Canadians to one that is now home to a great many immigrant voters and members of Parliament,” The Globe and Mail

said.

Of the 18 seats the Conservatives gained in districts in one metropolitan region, the newspaper said, “ 14 are more than 45% immigrant, and most would not long ago have been considered unwinnable for the Conservatives.”

Haney, the Arizona GOP official, told The Wanderer that the Canadian Conservatives “ spoke of family values and hard work and patriotism, so they kind of finessed their way into majorityship,” although “ I think they were couching it in nebulous terms, so that the listeners could put their own opinions in those terms.”

He said that although party leader Harper hadn’t taken a notable stand against abortion, he came out against Canada providing foreign- aid money when countries would use it for abortion.

Exactly a year before the recent election,The Toronto Star had reported: “ For the first time since taking power more than four years ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week openly embraced a solid, social- conservative policy of the right — refusing to have Canada support abortion in foreign- aid projects. Political observers were stunned.”

Because the other main Canadian parties — the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and the Bloc Quebecois — favor permissive abortion, the Conservatives “ are the only party where the pro- lifers have a shot,” Haney said.

Noting Harper’s reputation for not favoring strong moves against social liberalism that already was imposed on the populace, Haney remarked on the irony that leftists are allowed to force their agenda through against conservatives, but conservatives are expected to continue to meekly accept it.

Roberts, the Heritage research fellow, told The Wanderer, “ My impression is Harper is a very smart and effective politician.”

A Classical Liberal

As the election results came in, Steve Jalsevac of LifeSiteNews . com wrote, “ The strong Conservative majority should bode well for the issues of life and family, depending however on how much democratic freedom Harper will allow his caucus members.”

Jalsevac soon followed up by urging that Canadians make their feelings known to their members of Parliament, most of whom “ have some genuine sense of democratic responsibility to the people of Canada above their responsibility to the leader of their party. The leader did not elect them. The people did — to representthem.” A few days after the election, theNational Post’s John Ivison wrote: “ While Mr. Harper is not a typical hard- line social conservative, he has no time for the moral relativism of the left. He sees himself as classical liberal, in the mold of Edmund Burke, the Anglo- Irish political theorist who advocated organic reform.

“ In a speech to Civitas, a Conservative interest group, in 2003, he said Canada must rediscover and re- establish the fundamentals of Burkean social conservatism. ‘ That means taking steps to promote and protect the traditional family, banning child pornography, raising the age of sexual consent, strengthening the institution of marriage and providing choice in education’,” Ivison wrote.