From The Toronto Star: Tories beating Liberals at their own game

We’re now told that multicultural Canadians are just plain Canadians. They don’t want to be targeted by predatory Tory operatives who tailor their political pitches in a supposedly sinister form of ethnic profiling.  

And when did this newfound electoral correctness emerge? At about the time Liberals started losing their stranglehold on ethnic enclaves.

..When Liberals pandered to new immigrants and profited from their votes, it was an accepted quid pro quo for the natural governing party — a historic ethnic entitlement. From the birth of multiculturalism under Pierre Trudeau to the proliferation of ethnic delegates in Liberal leadership campaigns, harvesting immigrant votes was a grand electoral bargain.  

In government, the Liberals never missed a foreign policy opportunity to grab a domestic ethnic opportunity: whether rushing to recognize an independent Ukraine or turning a blind eye to the terrorist antics of the Tamil Tigers during Sri Lanka’s civil war, they always eyed the electoral calculus at home.  

Liberal politicians reflexively made the pilgrimage to Punjab so they could circumambulate the Golden Shrine revered by Sikhs in Amritsar, and even opened a dubious consulate in the state to please Punjabi Canadian voters. Now that the Conservatives have caught on and caught up, the Liberals are crying foul — suggesting that demographics is anti-democratic.

Read all of Martin Regg Cohn's column in The Toronto Star

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