An Obama in Canada?

Posted by cwaddell under Election 2008, Election 2008 Media commentary

Karim H. Karim

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama frequently says that his story is only possible in the United States. It seems reasonable, given our vaunted multiculturalism and employment equity policies, that we should be able to make a similar claim for Canada.

Sadly, visible minority representation in the federal parliament lags far behind their numbers in the population, despite their energetic involvement in Canadian electoral politics. According to research conducted by Jerome Black and Bruce Hicks, they comprised 7.1% of all MPs elected in 2004 – which was less than half their percentage in the population. 

Immigrants from Asia, the Caribbean and Africa comprise the bulk of newcomers to this country. Given these trends, Statistics Canada projects that visible minorities will form a fifth of Canada’s population by 2017. But the issues relating to immigration generally remain under the radar during elections. Politicians avoid the topic studiously, and the media usually follow their lead. This is surprising given that a number of the key seats in urban areas have significant proportions of immigrants.

A series of studies have shown that recent newcomers have significantly lower rates of income, despite higher educational and skill levels than earlier immigrants who arrived from Europe. It appears half a century after John Porter alerted us to the “vertical mosaic” that stratifies Canadian society, his description is even more apt and now has a racial dimension. This does not bode well for race relations in this country and should be of concern to all parties. 

There was a hint that the media may be waking up to this issue. CBC Radio 1’s campaign coverage had three major immigration-related items in last week. Anna Maria Tremonti and guest host Jan Wong brought in a series of guests to discuss the participation of immigrants in politics in two separate editions of The Current, and The World at Six ran a feature story. This seems unprecedented for coverage during an election period, and is even more surprising that it should appear in the first week of a campaign.

But journalists are not yet asking politicians the hard questions about immigration and the lack of appropriate employment for visible minorities. It remains to be seen whether last week’s momentum will pick up or be buried under puffin poop.

Karim H. Karim is the director of the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University.