Politics in Brampton, Ontario: "non-ethnics" need not apply

In a message I posted yesterday, I wrote:

I don't know the exact number, but about half of Ontario's seats are in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). It used to be that the Conservatives had a shot in the outer suburbs (the so-called 905 belt). This area once voted for Harris, but since then it's been flooded with immigrants and the only way the party can win seats is by running "ethnic" candidates and pandering to ethnic voters.

Mike Harris, for those of you outside Canada, was a Conservative
premier (prime minister) of Ontario. Even though his party was shut out of Toronto proper, it was able to win seats in the suburban regions that circle the city. These suburbs are called the 905 area after their area code. Phone numbers in the city itself have a 416 prefix. Political analysts often contrast voting patterns in the 905 area with those in the 416 area. Clear as mud? I hope so.

A long time ago Toronto was a Conservative bastion. Post-World War II immigration turned the city into a Liberal stronghold, but provincial Conservatives were still able to win seats in the suburban 905 belt. However, immigration has now changed that area as well. Yesterday, the Toronto Star had an article that describes how immigration has changed politics in Brampton, a 905 city:

The good news for Liberal incumbent Colleen Beaumier is that her Brampton West riding, Liberal red for decades, could be won with the Punjabi-Canadian vote. The problem: this time, her Conservative opponent, like the other three incumbents in Brampton, is Punjabi.

Punjabi power is flourishing across burgeoning Brampton, where the South Asian population has grown to about 85,000 people — about 21 per cent of the city's residents. By deploying political strategies that appeal to recent immigrants, Punjabi Canadians have emerged to form an almost impenetrable political monopoly across a ring of ridings north of Mississauga.

Drafting friends and family to win nominations, launching platforms that highlight immigrant concerns and utilizing a huge volunteer network to pull the vote gives Punjabi Canadian candidates distinct advantages.

"In these ridings it's impossible for a non-ethnic candidate to win a nomination now, much less a campaign," says Brampton's Sam Basra, a Fijian of Punjabi descent who arrived in Toronto 20 years ago and ran federally for the Conservatives during the '90s in Etobicoke North.

Basra says that in such a tight-knit community, the nomination process works in favour of Punjabi-Canadians with political aspirations. "They sign up as many friends and family as they need to take out memberships, pay the fee so they can vote, and then they win the nominations."

Note this:

Some, Basra claims, don't even care which party they're nominated for.

The article goes on to challenge this claim, but I believe it, because I've seen the same phenomenon among Ukrainian-Canadian voters who'll vote for any party as long as the candidate is one of "ours". The Ukrainian word for ours is Nash and if a candidate is Nash, he's good whatever his politics.