12 Special reportCanada The EconomistJuly 27th 2019
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aheed nenshi, Calgary’s ebullient mayor, says that when he
was elected in 2010—becoming the first Muslim to lead a large
North American city—only the foreign media brought up his reli-
gion. The local press never mentioned it. That changed when he
ran for re-election for a third term in 2017. People “suddenly started
talking about race and religion”, sometimes abusively, online. Al-
though his rivals avoided bigotry, it encouraged formerly non-vot-
ing racists to turn up at the polls. He still won. Four years ago, when
Justin Trudeau was elected, “Canada was bucking the trend,” says
Mr Nenshi. Now it is learning that “we’re not immune at all” to the
political maladies of the age.
The point of Mr Trudeau’s premiership has largely been to
boost Canada’s immunity with a liberal tonic that combines social
justice and environmentalism with advocacy of globalisation and
a dash of redistribution. The test of whether he has succeeded will
not be whether he wins the election in October. Rather, it will come
if he loses. Would a Conservative government sustain the broader
themes of Canadian liberalism even as it discarded Mr Trudeau’s
particular brand of it?
Geography, history, political culture, the electoral system, the
structure of the economy and the welfare state all argue for opti-
mism. They keep the political climate temperate. American slug-
fests over judicial appointments are foreign to Canada. The head of
the panel to advise Mr Trudeau on picking the next Supreme Court
justice is a former Progressive Conservative prime minister.
Canada’s comfort with diversity goes back to British colonists’
“incomplete conquests” of indigenous groups and French-speak-
ing settlers, Peter Russell, a historian, has argued. Surrounded by
three oceans and the United States, Canada can largely decide what
diversity will look like. It was a Progressive Conservative prime
minister, John Diefenbaker, who in 1962 ended Canada’s policy of
favouring white immigrants. This year Canada intends to accept
330,000 newcomers, nearly 1% of its population. The number is set
to rise. Around 90% of immigrants eventually become citizens.
They are a diverse bunch. In 2017 the top four countries of ori-
gin of new permanent residents were India, the Philippines, China
and Syria, who made up 47% of the total between them. Asked in
2016 what makes their country unique, 43% of Canadians, without
prompting, said multiculturalism and diversity, according to a
poll conducted by the Environics Institute. That was far ahead of
land and geography, at number two. Constituencies that swing
elections, such as the eastern and southern suburbs of Vancouver
and the 905 area code around Toronto, have large numbers of vot-
ers from immigrant backgrounds. No aspiring prime minister
dares provoke them.
Yet Mr Nenshi’s experience is a warning. Polling finds little in-
crease in hostility towards “visible minorities”: 40% say too many
are coming, compared with 38% in 2013, according to ekos,an Ot-
tawa firm. What has changed is how those attitudes are divided by
party. Among supporters of the Conservatives the share that is sus-
picious of non-white immigrants has jumped from 47% to 69%.
Among Liberal backers it has dropped from 34% to 15%. On this and
issues such as climate change, “polarisation in Canada is pretty
damn close to what it is in the us,” says Frank Graves of ekos.
That may be overstating it. But recent events at Roxham Roadsuggest he has a point. A few miles west of an official border post
between New York state and Quebec, Roxham Road is an entry
point for “irregular” migrants to Canada. Before President Trump,
just a few crept across. Since 2017 some 45,000, mostly non-Ameri-
can, migrants have sought asylum in Canada.
The irregular uptick sparked uproar and strained Canada’s pro-
immigration consensus. This may be “the first time in history that
immigration is an election issue nationally”, says Christian
Bourque of Leger Marketing, a market-research firm in Montreal.
In response, the government slipped in a measure to stop “asylum
shopping”, preventing refugees from filing claims if they have al-
ready done so in a safe country such as America.
Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives—the party lost the “Progres-
sive” qualifier in a merger with Stephen Harper’s Canadian Alli-
ance in 2003—have a trickier problem. Their voters are more
alarmed by Roxham Road than are the Liberals’. Conservatives face
a challenge from Maxime Bernier, a former federal minister from
Quebec who calls himself a “smart populist” and wants to reduce
the annual immigration target to 250,000—roughly what it was
under Mr Harper. His People’s Party is low in the polls, but the Con-
servatives cannot dismiss him. Nor can
they veer from the centre by pandering to
nativism.
While defending immigration, Mr
Scheer hinted that Canada could become a
bit less welcoming. As prime minister he
would “set immigration levels consistent
with what is in Canada’s best interests”. If
anyone detects a dogwhistle, a Conserva-
tive will set them straight. The Conserva-
tives are “one of few right-of-centre parties
that is strongly pro-immigration”, says Mi-
chelle Rempel, an mpfrom Alberta.
In effect, Conservatives are betting on the robustness of Cana-
da’s liberal antibodies and their own. Mr Scheer’s election pitch,
which includes undoing gun controls brought in by the Liberals,
cutting tax and ending national carbon pricing, may seem to have
a whiff of Trumpism. Yet Canadian populism “is not the kind of di-
visive demagogic variety we’ve seen in Europe”, says Jason Kenney,
who was Mr Harper’s minister for immigration and for multicul-
turalism and citizenship before becoming Alberta’s premier. The
day after uttering those words he spoke in what sounded like cred-
itable Punjabi to thousands of Sikhs at a parade in Calgary—not
something Mr Trump or Marine Le Pen could be imagined doing.
Both sides are bracing for a bitter election. The clash between
Mr Trudeau’s new-age liberalism and Mr Scheer’s conservatism
may test Canada’s defences against immoderation, but they
should hold. Canadian liberalism is so deep-rooted that it does not
depend on a Liberal Party victory. If Mr Trudeau loses, the world
will no longer be looking to him, as Mr Biden prophesied back in- But liberals will still look to Canada. 7
Last liberal standing?
The parliamentary election will be a test of Canada’s liberal valuesLooking aheadCanadian
liberalism is so
deep-rooted that
it does not
depend on a
Liberal victory