After months of political decline, the Liberal Celebration of Canada is exhibiting indicators of restoration, buoyed, some recommend, by a surge of nationwide pleasure within the face of Donald Trump’s tariff struggle and threats to Canadian sovereignty.
However this obvious rebound obscures a extra stunning political shift: the rising enchantment of the Conservative Celebration of Canada (CPC) amongst immigrants and their youngsters.
Historically, immigrant and visual minority communities have supported the centrist Liberal Celebration. Within the Higher Toronto Space (GTA), the place over half of all residents determine as “visible minority” (the class utilized by StatCan), Chinese language and South Asian Canadians have lengthy shaped a key a part of the Liberal base.
But latest polling tells a unique story. An October 2024 survey discovered that 45 per cent of immigrants had modified their political allegiances since arriving in Canada, with many now leaning Conservative.
In the meantime, one other nationwide survey from January 2025 discovered {that a} majority of East Asian (55 per cent) and South Asian (56 per cent) respondents expressed assist for the Conservative Celebration, far outpacing assist for the Liberals or the NDP.
Nationally, racialized residents now make up over 26 per cent of Canada’s inhabitants, with South Asians and Chinese language Canadians the 2 largest teams.
Whereas detailed racial breakdowns stay uncommon in Canadian polling, the few obtainable knowledge factors recommend a significant shift. This sample additionally displays a broader pattern: South Asian and Chinese language Canadians within the GTA are more and more politically lively, with rising turnout and rising partisan diversification.
Ramping up outreach
The Conservative Celebration, for its half, has taken discover. Below Pierre Poilievre’s management, the CPC has actively recruited racialized candidates and ramped up outreach in suburban swing ridings — notably by way of ethnic media promoting and messaging targeted on financial self-reliance and household values.
This rightward shift amongst racialized voters could appear counter-intuitive. The Conservative Celebration has traditionally represented white, prosperous voters, and beneath Stephen Harper (who led from 2006 to 2015), carried out insurance policies that curtailed immigration, tightened citizenship guidelines and reduce social applications in ways in which disproportionately harmed racialized communities.
Why, then, would racialized Canadians more and more flip to the precise?
In a examine I not too long ago revealed, I interviewed 50 Canadian-born youngsters of South Asian, Chinese language and white immigrants residing within the Higher Toronto Space (GTA). I argue that this shift shouldn’t be a contradiction however supplies a window into how racialized teams navigate inequality, exclusion and the seek for belonging.
Whereas there are numerous causes 2nd-generation racialized Canadians might assist the Conservative Celebration, this examine highlights one under-documented clarification. Voting for a right-wing get together that represents the pursuits of white, rich residents is usually a method for second-generation South Asian and Chinese language Canadians to hunt acceptance when energy is linked to whiteness..
The hidden prices of becoming in
In different phrases, many of those racialized Canadians don’t vote Conservative as a result of they’re unaware of inequality. They vote Conservative as a result of they’re attempting to navigate it.
Rising up in precariously middle-class households, the younger adults I interviewed watched their immigrant mother and father face deskilling and downward mobility regardless of arriving in Canada with skilled credentials.
They noticed their households pressured to “Canadianize” their names and accents, solely to be sidelined by employers who nonetheless favoured whiteness.
And so they had been raised in a society the place multiculturalism celebrates cultural symbols however typically ignores structural racism.
On this context, assist for the Conservatives displays not ignorance of marginalization, however a technique to transfer by way of it. Aligning with the precise turns into a sign of belonging.
As one younger South Asian Canadian man put it:
“You’ve arrived. You’re a Canadian. So, start voting like one.”
This want to belong doesn’t emerge in a vacuum. It’s formed by racial scripts that reward conformity and penalize dissent — most notably, the mannequin minority stereotype.
The value of acceptance
The mannequin minority stereotype casts Asian Canadians as hardworking and quietly profitable. On the floor, it seems like reward. However in observe, it hides inequality and calls for silence in trade for conditional belonging.
That acceptance is fragile. After Sept. 11, 2001, many South Asians, notably these perceived as Muslim, had been rapidly recast as harmful outsiders.
The same dynamic resurfaced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, when Asian Canadians confronted a pointy rise in racial harassment. In each instances, these as soon as celebrated as “model” residents had been all of the sudden handled as threats.
In some contexts, political restraint, like staying quiet or avoiding protest, can operate as a survival technique. However that’s not what I noticed on this examine.
The second-generation Canadians I interviewed weren’t politically quiet. They had been vocal of their assist for the Conservative Celebration. For them, voting Conservative was a technique to assert they already belonged, not by asking for inclusion, however by exhibiting they didn’t have to. Conservatism grew to become a marker of success, self-reliance and alignment with these on the centre of Canadian life.
Conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre holds a marketing campaign rally in Toronto, April 30, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Younger
Canada’s official embrace of multiculturalism reinforces this logic. Whereas typically praised as a nationwide energy, multiculturalism can obscure how racism actually works. Structural limitations are hidden behind feel-good narratives of inclusion.
Rethinking belonging
In Canada, concepts about who belongs are sometimes formed by race, class and respectability. Racialized individuals should not solely show they’re hardworking and law-abiding, but additionally display that they’ve “fit in.” For some, voting Conservative turns into a technique to present they’ve completed simply that — a method of claiming: “I’m not like them. I’m one of you.”
However this technique comes at a value. In reinforcing the very buildings that marginalize them, racialized voters might acquire particular person recognition whereas deepening collective exclusion. And in rejecting equity-based platforms, they could forgo the insurance policies that might construct a extra simply society.
This dynamic isn’t restricted to the second technology. A latest CBC survey discovered that 4 in 5 newcomers imagine Canada has accepted too many immigrants and worldwide college students with out correct planning.
Some immigrants are more and more expressing exclusionary views, typically towards those that arrived extra not too long ago. This, too, is a type of aspirational politics. And it reveals simply how deeply race, precarity and belonging are entangled in Canada right this moment.
None of which means racialized Conservative voters are naïve. Their choices typically mirror a clear-eyed understanding of how energy works.
But when we wish a fairer political future, we should reckon with the methods race, class and nationalism form belonging — not simply on the poll field, however within the tales we inform about who will get to be “Canadian.”
As sociologist Ruha Benjamin reminds us, inclusion shouldn’t be handled as an act of generosity. It’s not about “helping” the marginalized — it’s about understanding that we’re all related. When worry shapes coverage and public items are stripped away, everybody suffers.
