There is emerging an interesting similarity between the 2007 and the 2011 Ontario elections. In both elections one of the worst human reflexes, xenophobia, has been used to turn a relatively minor policy proposal into a central point of the electoral debate. In 2007 the Liberals argued that religious school funding would mean funding Muslim schools, which they subtly and not so subtly suggested would be the same as funding radical Muslims and possibly terrorists. In the 2011 election the PC Party is arguing that a proposal to subsidize the hiring of recent immigrants is screwing over locals in favour of “foreign workers.”
I have often argued that the school funding issue was not the reason that the PC Party lost the 2007 election. It was a symptom of a deeper problem with the strategy and platform of the party. Still it is undeniable that the issue had an impact on the outcome.
It was interesting watching the Liberal Party, who have traditionally accused Conservatives of being racist, get away with a fundamentally racist argument. As I suggested above their argument came down to, “we don’t want to fund more religious schools because then we would have to fund Muslim schools. And Muslims are nasty radical terrorists.” It tapped into the worst element of human nature, the fear of the other. It was a disgusting strategy that seemed to have worked.
The PC strategy in 2011 is not quite as racist, but still cultivates the same xenophobic fear of the other. Many if not most people have a sneaking suspicion that other people are taking up resources that they could be using. If someone does not belong to what that person sees as their group, then often that suspicion becomes outright paranoia. In policy debates this emerges as an assertion that immigrants “take” the jobs away from locals.
By using phrases like “Ontarians need not apply,” and “foreign workers” to discuss the Liberal Party’s proposed subsidy the PC Party is pretty blatantly appealing to anti-immigrant sentiment. To be fair this policy does represent the taking of resources from one group and giving it to another, but that also describes almost every other government policy that has ever existed. You have to wonder why this particular redistribution is worse than any other.
Two more similarities between the debates around the religious school funding and immigrant job subsidy policies strike me.
First, they are both pretty minor policies. The spending being proposed in both policies, when taken as part of the total government expenditure, is about the equivalent of someone forgetting to round correctly. Also the number of people directly affected by these policies would be pretty underwhelming. Furthermore neither policy represents a major shift in government philosophy, but are both a natural extension of a principle already inherent in current government practice. This is hardly what you would expect parties to fight elections over.
Second, they are both bad policies that could be easily criticized without having to resort to racist or anti-immigrant sentiment. It would not take much effort to poke holes into either policy, especially the job subsidy idea. This suggests to me that the point isn’t to criticize the policies. The point appears to be to actually utilize people’s xenophobia for electoral gain. The proposed policies in of themselves are not important, but they do open the door to allowing politicians to use certain rhetoric.
In a province that prides itself for being cosmopolitan, it strikes me odd that xenophobia is playing such a prominent role in two elections in a role.