Shikha Dalmia in the Washington Examiner on What Canada's Tories can Teach the GOP About Wooing Immigrant Votes
The reason why Democrats want immigration reform is also the reason why Republicans don't want it: More Hispanic Voters. Republicans fear that with whites slated to lose their demographic dominance, more Hispanics will mean fewer buyers of its limited government ideals. One might be tempted to ask, what limited government ideals? But setting that aside, Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia notes in her Washington Examiner column this morning that:
Republicans need simply look north to realize that such defeatist thinking represents a failure of imagination.
Canadian Conservatives were in the exact same boat as the GOP in the 1990s. Rapid immigration from Asia and elsewhere had allowed Liberals to cobble together a seemingly invincible block of French-speaking Quebecers plus immigrants in Toronto and Vancouver for three consecutive electoral wins.
Conservatives were viewed as a scary "anti-immigrant, rural white man's party." In 2000, 70 percent of all identifiable minorities voted for the Liberal Party.
That was then.
In the past three elections, Canada's Conservatives have made rapid strides in wooing immigrants. By 2008, minorities were as likely to vote Conservative as Liberal. Three years later, of the 23 seats that Tories picked up in national elections, 20 were in greater Toronto where immigrants constitute more than 30 percent of the population.
How did Canada's cons turn the tables? Go here to find out — but it wasn't by throwing free goodies at immigrant voters.
