Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

BTC: Random questions of the moment

by Aaron Wherry on Monday, November 3, 2008 3:05am - 31 Comments

When will Canadians elect (sorry Kim) a Prime Minister who is not a white guy?

When will a major party choose as its leader someone who is not white?

Tags: Kim Campbell

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John D

The Indo-Canadian community is very active in politics and I believe the first minority party leader will come from that community (I have no evidence to back this up, it is a hunch).

That being said, I am very concerned that a party like the Liberals will enter another leadership contest without a female front-runner. I would not be surprised if the Tories have a(nother) female leader before the Liberals.
David Mader

I think someone’s made this point already, and it doesn’t really answer Wherry’s question (which is a fair one), but as an empirical foundation:

Visible minorities as a percentage of Canada’s population, 2001 census: 13.44%

Visible minorities as a percentage of the American population, 2006 estimates: 26%.

That’s not to say that our failure to be led (to date) by a non-male-caucasian is entirely a product of our whiteness; but it is to say that the emergence of a non-male-caucasian leader is significantly less statistically likely.
Dot

re: Elizabeth May running for the Liberals.

Not a chance. Her salary as leader comes from the Green Party. In addition, the taxpayer funded subsidies to political parties allows her to maintain two homes (in Ottawa and in Pictou County), and criss cross the country at her will. She couldn’t afford to be an also-ran in the Liberalpalooza, and she’d have no income during and after the affair (notwithstanding no support outside of David Orchard cultists).

Some investigative reporter should have a look at her travel expenses and carbon foot print.

My prediction: She’ll stay on as Green Leader until the next Fed election when, if courted by the new Lib Leader, she’ll abandon ship and run for the Liberals, having obtained maximum personal exposure and benefit from her current role.
boudica

Does anyone have stats about non-white representation in the House of Commons?
http://tigerinexile.wordpress.com Ben

Eyeballing the unofficial list at the Library of Parliament’s website, I found 18 of 308.

That underestimates it, of course, because there are undoubtedly people whom I don’t know about & who don’t stand out by name…

I was actually a bit surprised — I expected visible minorities to be slightly over-represented, not the other way ’round. Maybe I moved too quickly through the list.
http://unambig.blogspot.com Raphael Alexander

I always thought it was cool in Canada that we weren’t obsessive with race like they are down south.

I don’t care, personally, how long it takes to get a black guy as party leader. No big deal. It’ll happen, or it won’t. Whatever. The point is, you try and vote for the best candidate possible. Once you start voting for ethnicity, you’re in trouble.

I voted for a black guy in the last Ontario Provincial election. Brampton West had Mark Beckles running for the Progressive Conservatives. Actually, the NDP candidate Garth Bobb was also black. Sanjeev Goel for the Greens was Sikh. And the winner, Vic Dhillon, an ethnic Sikh, was voted in by the Liberal surge that brought Dalton his majority.

Did I complain I didn’t get a white candidate in Brampton West? I don’t care what the race or sex is. Best candidate for the job. Period. The Liberal and NDP obsession on race and sex is just another reason not to vote for them, until they put those ideas of restorative justice and affirmative action behind them.

With all the nattering from the Liberals about running a field of 1/3 women this election, the Tories ended up with the most elected women. And no affirmative action policy is in place.