The Truth About Burnaby South

Pundits in Canada love to write about the meaning of by-elections. They’re usually policy wonks and inside-baseball styled legacy media writers and talking heads. In Canada’s politically correct culture, people are usually afraid to assess politics with raw honesty. Granted, democracy is a messy, irrational business and nobody fails harder at predicting the whims of ignorant voters than critically thinking political writers. They’ll predict their predictions and when they’re wrong they’ll explain why they were wrong. Useless.
For this reason, I won’t predict who will win,
but I’m going to take a look at a few numbers and make some
observations that you probably won’t get to read about anywhere
else.
1. Mother tongue
The Burnaby-South riding has a population of about
111,973 people. The first language that people cite as their mother
tongue is English with 39,585. The second biggest language spoken in
the riding is (various forms of) Chinese at 35,560. The amount of
people who speak Punjabi is only 2375.
Why does this matter?
Through the lense of identity politics, Jagmeet is
a non-white, non-Chinese, Sikh with a beard and a turban. By looking
at people’s mother tongue we can assess who would be most receptive
to tribalism in this riding. Punjabi is grossly out-matched by
English and Chinese.
But wait! Mother tongue doesn’t paint the whole
picture!
Correct.
2. Ethnicity
7,850 people in the riding identify as some form
of “East Indian”. This doesn’t mean they are all Sikhs (many
non-Sikhs from India are likely to vote against Jagmeet because of
his religion and in spite of this ethnicity), it just means they
identify as being from the region.
43,315 people identify as Chinese. This poses a
problem for Jagmeet as he is running against Liberal candidate Karen
Wang and Conservative candidate Jay Shin. It’s likely that Chinese
voters are going to prefer to vote for one of their own. This may
cause a vote split in Jagmeet’s favour, but Indians are still
outnumbered 5 to 1 in the riding. Chinese voters may also be less
motivated to vote than Punjabi voters in the riding. China’s lack
of democratic culture makes Chinese voter turnout suspect, but
still...5 to 1 is a big hurdle to overcome.
35,705 people identify as “European origins”
which for the most part just means “Old Stock” Canadian. A lot of
these “Old Stock” Canadians aren’t going to see themselves
represented by any mainstream candidate and voter turnout is likely
to be horrendous as a result. The people who bother to vote will be
the partisans. Which brings us to...
3. Partisan politics
By-elections usually fail to get out the vote.
Normal general election voters can’t help but to notice that a
general election is happening due to media coverage and cultural
chatter. People who never bother themselves with politics suddenly
feel the need to vote. By-elections are different, because the
locality of the race means no massive media coverage. Most people in
a riding don’t even know a by-election is happening. Consequently
turn out is horrific and the people who participate are typically
hardcore partisans.
The big question will be... which partisans are
most motivated?
According to a Mainstreet poll last November,
residents were asked about their voting intentions. 35.9% of decided
and leaning voters in Burnaby South said that they would vote Liberal
in the upcoming by-election, while 29.3% said that they would vote
Conservative. 27.2% said that they would vote NDP. Jagmeet (as well
as the other candidates) was never mentioned in the question. This
response places the three main candidates within striking distance of
each other. This is consistent with election results in years past.
Burnaby South (and the previous riding boundary which was
Burnaby-Douglas) has consistently elected NDP candidates, but they
always barely win with only 1000 votes or so.
My sense regarding partisanship is that the NDP
are demoralized with Jagmeet as the leader. The schism between old
left and new left is palpable and the undercurrent of this schism is
identity politics. Old white leftists would’ve preferred a Charlie
Angus or Nathan Cullen as leader. Many young Jack Layton NDP fans
have gravitated to Trudeau’s progressivism. This leaves Jagmeet as
the ethnic new left candidate that can’t mobilize enough non-Sikhs
to win.
Jay Shin has the benefit of running under the
Conservative banner. Partisan Conservative supporters are united in
their hatred of Trudeau and this will get them out to the polls in a
big way.
Likewise, Karen Wong was running under the Liberal
banner until she used racial politics and got the boot. They’ll
support her Asian replacement, Richard Lee, in order to virtue signal
their support for Trudeau. He also has the advantage of running for
the party in power, which is always helpful in a by-election.
4. Money
In 2015, Kennedy Stewart was the incumbent and he
won with 35.07% of the vote. Liberal Adam Pankratz achieved 33.88% of
the vote. Conservative Grace Seear got 27.11% of the vote. The
interesting factor though is money.
It’s expensive to purchase an election and
Kennedy Stewart barely won his riding despite having spent
$177,796.68 on his campaign. This is more than the expenditures of
both the Liberal candidate ($33,613.38) and the Conservative
candidate ($83,392.49) combined!
Guaranteed that more party HQ money is going to be
poured into this contest than during the 2015 election, but
nevertheless, reports have stated that Jagmeet is having trouble
fundraising for his own campaign. That says something.
Last week, Singh, who is seeking to run in a yet-to-be-called Burnaby South by election, sent a fundraising email to local supporters stating that just $1,918 had been raised for his campaign office, and $4,000 was needed in order to be able to keep it open.
His campaign manager told CTVNews.ca at the time that the figures were an accurate depiction of the MP-hopeful's war chest, but the send-out was successful and Singh won't have to close the door on his campaign office before the race even begins. — CTV News
5. Jagmeet is a carpetbagger
One of the most important elements regarding
identity politics is identifying where you’re from. Jay Shin and Jagmeet Singh don’t
even live in the riding. What little respect I have left for
representative democracy hinges on local representation. Without
having that, your candidate is just another mercenary grifter.
“He supports LGBTQ rights. He married a
well-educated successful working woman. He has no accent. He dances.
If nothing else he will educate many people.” ~ poster on Rabble
regarding Singh
My guess is that the “if nothing else” part of the above quote will come to pass. Jagmeet will fail. He will fail because not enough Sikhs live in the riding. Chinese people will support Chinese candidates. Whites will divide along partisan lines. The NDP is divided and demoralized. He’s a carpetbagger without connection to the riding. Money will be equalized this time as all parties will likely spend the (roughly $200,000.00) limit. Jagmeet is a new left, carpetbagger who only excites the wokest of woke young people and Sikh folks and this by-election will prove to be his doom. I wouldn't mind if he proved me wrong. If I'm right this will reinforce the coming of tribalism along racial and ethnic lines and our democracy is going to get a whole lot worse as multiculturalism grows.