After months of political decline, the Liberal Party of Canada is showing signs of recovery, buoyed, some suggest, by a surge of national pride in the face of Donald Trump’s tariff war and threats to Canadian sovereignty.
But this apparent rebound obscures a more surprising political shift: the growing appeal of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) among immigrants and their children.
Traditionally, immigrant and visible minority communities have supported the centrist Liberal Party. In the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), where over half of all residents identify as “visible minority” (the category used by StatCan), Chinese and South Asian Canadians have long formed a key part of the Liberal base.
Yet recent polling tells a different story. An October 2024 survey found that 45 per cent of immigrants had changed their political allegiances since arriving in Canada, with many now leaning Conservative.
Meanwhile, another national survey from January 2025 found that a majority of East Asian (55 per cent) and South Asian (56 per cent) respondents expressed support for the Conservative Party, far outpacing support for the Liberals or the NDP.
Nationally, racialized citizens now make up over 26 per cent of Canada’s population, with South Asians and Chinese Canadians the two largest groups.
While detailed racial breakdowns remain rare in Canadian polling, the few available data points suggest a meaningful shift. This pattern also reflects a broader trend: South Asian and Chinese Canadians in the GTA are increasingly politically active, with rising turnout and growing partisan diversification.
Author:
- Emine Fidan Elcioglu | Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto
Nationally, racialized citizens now make up over 26 per cent of Canada’s population, with South Asians and Chinese Canadians the two largest groups.
What does “racialized” mean?
The Wikipedia article was jargon-y
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/racialized-minorities
The ladder calls for them
I’ve definitely heard of irrational hatred towards the Libs from South Asians, but not so much from those of Chinese descent, but tbf my real life circle isn’t that big and we don’t really talk about politics. As an immigrant myself from a similar demographic (am Southeast Asian), I have to say that I don’t understand this rightward shift in voting sentiments. Is it cause they’ve never been under Harper, or never heard of what things were like under him? (I’ve only been here since Trudeau) The Cons never came across as being friendly to non-Whites, and that should already be a warning sign.
But afaik, a good number of the Chinese that I know of are generally supportive of being tough on crime and see Canada as being unsafe, especially the older generation. They praise China for having strong police presence and for its seemingly lower crime rate, and then says things like, “It’ll never be like that in Canada. And to think that we came here because it used to be bad there and was much safer here.” One that I’ve talked to said that he supports the CPC for being tough on crime (allegedly I would say, but nonetheless), and support scaling back immigration even further to hopefully bring back how Canadians used to be much more friendlier (he sees the large increase in new immigrants as a reason why Canadians have become less friendly overall). Perhaps to these people, they would rather trade being possibly oppressed for a chance of having lower crime rate? Idk how that’s more assuring from a safety standpoint but it makes sense to them.
Because the last 10 years have been a whole lot of nothing good. Time to send the liberals packing.
Propaganda works.
