Article content The quickest way to get a start in politics in Canada is to appeal to members of an affiliated ethnic or religious group to take over a nomination battle or leadership convention, specialists say. It’s not a new political strategy, but more and more it’s becoming the technique for scrambling to the top in Canadian politics. “The easiest way to get troops on the ground is to mobilize existing socially connected groups — and the strongest ties are ethnic and religious,” says , a former Conservative party activist in the 1990s who runs Innovative Research, a polling and corporate communications company.
“It’s the rules of the game. In the modern world, politics has become increasingly tribal. People are voting based on their social identity.
It’s become them versus us. If you can free-ride on an existing relationship when you need to stack a meeting or sign up a bunch of people to come and vote for you in a nomination, it’s a quick way to success.” Lyle has seen it all through decades in Canadian politics, including with the campaigns of Progressive Conservative Brian Mulroney, who served prime minister 1984 to 1993.
The data of University of Toronto political scientist , author of Identities and Interests: Race, Ethnicity, and Affinity Voting, back’s Lyle’s perspective. Besco has found ethnic self-identification is powerful in Canadian elections. The largest groups — South Asian Canadians and Chinese Canadians — tend to support candid.
