Stephen Harper’s Conservatives returned to power with a stronger, broadly-based minority and ready to implement immigration changes

The incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party has returned to power in Canada’s elections but will face another minority parliament after being denied a majority by Quebec separatists.

The results of country's 40th general election showed that the Conservative Party has strengthened lead everywhere except Quebec. The Conservatives won 143 seats in the House of Commons, up from 127 in 2006, while the Liberals won 76, a drop of 19 seats from the party's standing at dissolution. Bloc Québécois candidates were elected in 50 ridings, while NDP candidates were holding 37 seats, a gain of seven seats over the last election. Two Independents also held on to their seats.

The Conservative Party was in need of 155 seats in the 308-seat House of Commons to wield majority rule.

Before dissolution, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were also in minority so faced a lot of resistance to their amendments to the Immigration Act this spring. However, this time Conservatives have returned to power with a stronger, broadly based minority, facing a weakened opposition leader and ready to address issues more easily and more quickly.

In the aftermath of his second-straight minority government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will now finally put their party’s sponsored immigration priorities into practice (which are, as yet unknown to the public), and all those Federal Skilled Workers whose applications have been accepted provisionally by the department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) since February 27th, will finally know their fate.

According to the Conservative’s immigration plans, Federal Skilled Worker applicants will now be selected based on whether their occupations are on CIC’s recently established list of qualifying occupations. Applicants whose occupations will be on this list and who will be securing minimum required points (under the Federal Skilled Worker category) will be qualified for permanent resident visa. Those, whose occupations will not be on the list, will either put into waiting list or receive their applications back with full refund, however, they will not be considered refused. These applicants, therefore, could re-apply or apply for a provincial nomination, if they can qualify.

According to Canada’s immigration agency, this list of qualifying occupations will not be made pubic until November this year.

The Conservatives have also pledged to work with provinces and territories to ensure greater standardization of workplace and professional credentials across the country and standards for assessment of foreign credentials, to place foreign credential on agenda of next meeting of First Ministers, and to make immigration consulting a regulated activity.

More from the results of Tuesday’s election shows that eight candidates from South Asian origin, including seven sitting MPs have been elected. Deepak Obhrai, Ruby Dhalla and Gurbax Singh Malhi, besides Navdeep Bains, Ujjal Dosanjh, Nina Grewal and Ratan Singh are the members who have been re-elected. Tim Uppal, won from Alberta, will join for the first time the other MPs from South Asian origin. Two sitting candidates from South Asian origin, Wajid Khan and Rahim Jaffer, lost their seats. In 2006, ten MPs were elected to the Parliament from South Asian origin compared with three Arabs and five Chinese.

Canadians have also elected a record number of women that is 68, up from 66 in 2006. All the party leaders, Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe, won their seats except Elizabeth May of Green Party who lost her seat. Voter turnout hovered around 59 per cent, appearing to be the lowest in the history of Confederation.

Over thirty South Asian candidates contesting in upcoming federal election across the Canada

The South Asian community seems quite active in the upcoming federal election, perhaps more than any other visible minority in Canada.

Both major parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, have nominated about two dozen candidates from the South Asian community. Third biggest party, the NDP, has alone nominated almost two dozen South Asian candidates. Green Party has also nominated two South Asian candidates.

Nearly two dozen South Asian candidates, from the three main contesting parties, are Sikh-Canadians. The Liberals were the first to recognize the poll potential of the Sikhs, while NDP have fielded the maximum number of Sikh candidates in the upcoming federal election. NDP members have nominated candidates for Brampton ridings who are all from the Punjabi Sikh community.

Three among the five constituencies in Mississauga are being contested by South Asians. A Pakistani descendant and a Bengali descendant are running for two Scarborough ridings. NDP candidates for Toronto Centre, St. Paul's and Etobicoke North are of South Asian background.

In demographic terms, the NDP has nominated more than half its candidates in the GTA who are from South Asian communities.

In 2006, there were ten Members of Parliament of South Asian origin. Three incumbent Liberal members of Parliament from Brampton, one from Toronto and two from British Columbia are also back in the race. Two incumbent Conservative MPs from Alberta and a sitting MP from Mississauga belong to the South Asian community as well.

In a broader perspective, South Asians are candidates for all political parties. Some local campaigners are worried that South Asian candidates could sway these snap elections and have derided all the parties for ‘ethnic pandering.’

South Asians are the largest visible minority and immigrant group in Canada. Nearly 1.3 million people — a 38 per cent increase over 2001 — identified themselves in 2006 census as South Asian, which includes Canadians who came from countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. They accounted for 24.9 per cent of the visible minority population and 4 per cent of the total population.

Canada wraps up more than 200 different ethnic origins but ‘Canadian’ is the most famous ethnic ancestry

Another breakdown from the 2006 census by Statistics Canada shows that the number of visible minorities in Canada has not only surpassed the five million mark for the first time in history but also increased at two times in last 15 years.

According to the Canada's Employment Equity Act, the term visible minority refers to "persons, other than Aboriginal persons, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." As per this definition, Chinese, South Asians, Blacks, Arabs, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, Latin Americans, Japanese, Koreans and other visible minority groups such as Pacific Islanders are recognized as visible minority in Canada.

The growth in the visible minority population, driven largely by immigration from non-European countries, soared 26.2 per cent between 2001 and 2006 to nearly 5.1 million, five times faster than the 5.4 per cent increase in overall population. Now visible minorities accounted for 16.2 per cent or one in every six persons in Canada, up from 13.4 per cent at the time of previous census in 2001, and 11.2 per cent at the time of 1996 census. However, it is also a fact that one in three visible minorities was born in Canada, including nearly two-thirds of Japanese, and 44.3 per cent of blacks.

And if current immigration trends continue, it could be projected that Canada's visible minority population will account for one in five of the total population by 2017.

Nearly 96 per cent of visible minorities live in metropolitan areas, compared with just 68.1 per cent of the total population. They account for 42.9 per cent of Toronto's population and 41.7 per cent of Vancouver's, by far the highest proportions among all cities.

Visible minorities also tended to be younger than the population in general with a median age — half being younger and half older — of 33 years compared with 39 for the population as a whole.

South Asians – the largest visible minority group

These latest figures also revealed an interesting fact that, for the first time, South Asians became Canada's largest visible minority group in 2006, surpassing Chinese. Nearly 1.3 million people — a 38 per cent increase over 2001 — identified themselves in 2006 as South Asian, which includes Canadians who came from countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. They accounted for 24.9 per cent of the visible minority population and 4 per cent of the total population.

The number of people who identified themselves in 2006 as Chinese increased 18.2 per cent, and accounted for 24 per cent of visible minorities, while the number identifying themselves as black, the third largest visible minority, rose 18.4 per cent, and accounted for 15.5 per cent of visible minorities. Other visible minorities included Filipinos, making up 8.1 per cent of all visible minorities, Latin Americans 6 per cent, Arabs 5.2 per cent, West Asians 3.1 per cent, Koreans 2.8 per cent and Japanese 1.6 per cent.

A total of 83.9 per cent of the immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2006 censuses were from non-European countries.

Ethnocultural Diversity

The report also noted that Canada has more than 200 different ethnic origins, which compares with just 25 in the 1901 census. In 1901, people who reported Aboriginal ancestries and British and French origins made up the largest share of the population. By 2006, there were 11 ethnic origins with more than one million people each.

The most frequently reported ethnic origin was Canadian, with just over 10 million or 32.2 per cent of the population giving that as their ethnic ancestry, including 5.7 million who gave no other ancestry and 4.3 million who included Canadian with another origin. The other most frequently reported origins, either alone or in combination with others were English, French, Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Chinese, North American Indian, Ukrainian and Dutch.

The highest proportion of people reporting their ethnic ancestry as Canadian include 60.2 per cent in Quebec, 46.2 per cent in Atlantic Canada, and in the other regions ranged from 23 per cent in Ontario to just 4 per cent in Nunavut.

Meanwhile, the proportion reporting multiple ancestries continued to rise, reaching 41.4 per cent in 2006, up from 38.2 per cent in 2001, and 35.8 per cent in 1996.

There is also a 33 per cent increase has been reported in "mixed" marriages or common-law unions involving a visible minority person with a non-visible minority or with a person from another visible minority. Such mixed unions accounted for 3.9 per cent of all unions, up from 3.1 per cent in 2001, and just 2.6 per cent in 1991. South Asians and Chinese were least likely to form a union outside their ethnic group.

Commuters and work clusters

The census found more Canadians go to work in the suburbs of major cities than in the past: Nearly 3.5 million worked in suburbs in 2006, a 12.2 per cent increase over 2001 and nearly twice the 5.9 per cent growth rate in the number of city workers, which were estimated at 2.8 million. Large suburban work clusters include Mississauga and Vaughan in Ontario, Laval in Quebec and Surrey in B.C. The census also found that more Canadians were travelling to work as a passenger or on public transit than in the past.