The Shift in Political Allegiance Among Racialized Canadians

Immigrants and Conservative Party Support

The Liberal Party of Canada is regaining strength, possibly due to a surge of national pride in response to Donald Trump’s tariff war and threats to Canadian sovereignty. However, a more surprising political shift is emerging: the growing appeal of the Conservative Party among immigrants and their children.

Traditionally, immigrant and visible minority communities have supported the centrist Liberal Party. In the Greater Toronto Area, where over half of all residents identify as “visible minority,” Chinese and South Asian Canadians have long formed a key part of the Liberal base.

Recent polling tells a different story. An October 2024 survey found that 45% 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%) and South Asian (56%) 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. This pattern reflects a broader trend: South Asian and Chinese Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area are increasingly politically active, with rising turnout and growing partisan diversification.

Ramping Outreach

The Conservative Party, under Pierre Poilievre’s leadership, has taken notice. The CPC has actively recruited racialised candidates and ramped up outreach in suburban swing ridings, particularly through ethnic media advertising and messaging focused on economic self-reliance and family values.

This rightward shift among racialised voters may seem counter-intuitive. The Conservative Party has historically represented white, affluent voters and implemented policies that curtailed immigration, tightened citizenship rules, and cut social programs in ways that disproportionately harmed racialised communities.

Why, then, would racialised Canadians increasingly turn to the right?

In a study I recently published, I interviewed 50 Canadian-born children of South Asian, Chinese, and white immigrants living in the Greater Toronto Area. I argue that this shift is not a contradiction but provides a window into how racialised groups navigate inequality, exclusion, and the search for belonging.

Voting for a right-wing party that represents the interests of white, wealthy citizens can be a way for second-generation South Asian and Chinese Canadians to seek acceptance when power is linked to whiteness.

Hidden Costs of Fitting In

In other words, many of these racialised Canadians don’t vote Conservative because they’re unaware of inequality. They vote Conservative because they’re trying to navigate it.

Growing up in precariously middle-class households, the young adults I interviewed watched their immigrant parents face deskilling and downward mobility despite arriving in Canada with professional credentials.

They saw their families pressured to “Canadianise” their names and accents, only to be sidelined by employers who still favoured whiteness.

And they were raised in a society where multiculturalism celebrates cultural symbols but often ignores structural racism.

In this context, support for the Conservatives reflects not ignorance of marginalisation, but a way to move through it. Aligning with the right becomes a signal of belonging.

As one young South Asian Canadian man put it: “You’ve arrived. You’re a Canadian. So, start voting like one.”

Price of Acceptance

The model minority stereotype casts Asian Canadians as hardworking and quietly successful. On the surface, it sounds like praise. But in practice, it hides inequality and demands silence in exchange for conditional belonging.

That acceptance is fragile. After September 11, 2001, many South Asians, particularly those perceived as Muslim, were quickly recast as dangerous outsiders.

A similar dynamic resurfaced during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Asian Canadians faced a sharp rise in racial harassment. In both cases, those once celebrated as “model” citizens were suddenly treated as threats.

In some contexts, political restraint, like staying quiet or avoiding protest, can function as a survival strategy. But that’s not what I observed in this study.

The second-generation Canadians I interviewed were not politically quiet. They were vocal in their support for the Conservative Party. For them, voting Conservative was a way to assert they already belonged, not by asking for inclusion, but by showing they did not need to. Conservatism became a marker of success, self-reliance, and alignment with those at the centre of Canadian life.

Rethinking Belonging

In Canada, ideas about who belongs are often shaped by race, class, and respectability. Racialised people must not only prove they are hardworking and law-abiding but also demonstrate that they’ve “fit in.” For some, voting Conservative becomes a way to show they’ve done just that – a way of saying: “I’m not like them. I’m one of you.”

But this strategy comes at a cost. In reinforcing the very structures that marginalise them, racialised voters may gain individual recognition while deepening collective exclusion. And in rejecting equity-based platforms, they may forgo the policies that could build a more just society.

This dynamic isn’t limited to the second generation. A recent CBC survey found that four in five newcomers believe Canada has accepted too many immigrants and international students without proper planning.

Some immigrants are increasingly expressing exclusionary views, often toward those who arrived more recently. This, too, is a form of aspirational politics. And it shows just how deeply race, precarity, and belonging are entangled in Canada today.

None of this means that racialised Conservative voters are naïve. Their decisions often reflect a clear-eyed understanding of how power works.

But if we want a fairer political future, we must reckon with the ways race, class, and nationalism shape belonging – not just at the ballot box, but in the stories we tell about who gets to be “Canadian.”

Emine Fidan Elcioglu is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto.

This article was first published on The Conversation.