John Godfrey's Successor in Don Valley West

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Originally posted by OFL:
[b]I have heard two names :

Mark Warner - ousted Conservative candidate from Toronto Centre
[url=http://www.thestar.com/article/280572]http://www.thestar.com/article/280...

&

Abdul Ingar, a local Iman[/b]

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Before 1993, the riding was a Progressive Conservative one, and Godfrey thinks Warner could have appeal there.

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Sure, let's replace a long-serving male with another male.

I wonder if Kathleen Wynne approves? (Ontario's Minister of Education, the provincial MPP for the same riding.)

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
[b]
Sure, let's replace a long-serving male with another male.
[/b]

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If Warner's elected wouldn't he be the only Black MP? (not that I'm advocating him - international trade lawyers have too much influence on government policy as it is.

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Originally posted by aka Mycroft:
[b]

If Warner's elected wouldn't he be the only Black MP? (not that I'm advocating him - international trade lawyers have too much influence on government policy as it is.[/b]

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He would be the only Black M.P. in Toronto, in fact the only Black male Liberal M.P. It does seem odd that Toronto is so often touted as a multiultural model and yet so few elected representatives are visible minorities. Running Warner in Godfrey's seat would give the Liberals a chance to put their money where their mouth is. With Obama winning in the U.S., Canada is in falling behind.

Well, most of those are suburbia, not Toronto, OTOH suburbia is in many respects more multiracial than Toronto now.

Toronto politics is a couple of generations removed from the current reality, I suspect that is true just about anywhere (the suburbs don't have a couple of generations of history at this point).

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Originally posted by Sinister:
[b]Or Sarmite Bulte because she is a woman.[/b]

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It "helps" that she's a woman, but the more likely alibi is that she has "Parliamentary experience" (such as it is).

Where does she live now, anyway? Remember that through her Parkdale-High Park years, she lived in Forest Hill or something...

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Originally posted by jrootham:
[b]Well, most of those are suburbia, not Toronto, OTOH suburbia is in many respects more multiracial than Toronto now.

Toronto politics is a couple of generations removed from the current reality, I suspect that is true just about anywhere (the suburbs don't have a couple of generations of history at this point).[/b]

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Actually, ALL of those are 905 (suburbia), my point was about 416 (Toronto, notwithstanding amalgamation).

Haroon Siddiqui has an interesting take on this in the Star quoting Prof. Myer Siemiatycki, director of Ryerson University's immigration studies program"Parties fall over each other to find visible minorities in the Bramptons, the Mississaugas and Markhams, with the result that candidates for all three parties are vis-mins, as if to say: `They are okay in their own backyard but elsewhere they are not good enough, and white European stock is the norm.'" [url=http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/292686]http://www.thestar.com/printA...

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Originally posted by adma:
[b]One of yesterday's papers suggested Sarmite Bulte's looking for a comeback...[/b]

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... and so too is Deborah Coyne - [url=http://www.deborahcoyne.com/.]http://www.deborahcoyne.com/.[/url]

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Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:
[b]I think that's a good assessement. It seems to me that political parties do attempt to run visible minority candidates in so-called "ethnoburbs" that are particularly associated with one group (i.e. Chinese in Markham and Indians in Brampton - even though these groups aren't anywhere near a majority in these places BTW). [/b]

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I don't know if that's really the case. This map recently put out by the Star based on Census 2006 info makes it pretty clear that the 905 ethnoburbs have hit a level where these minorities now hold a substantial plurality--if not on the municipality-wide level, then at least within riding-size blocks (ie Bramalea-Gore-Malton, or Markham-Unionville). And that's working off linguistic splits rather than ethnic ones... for instance, roll second-generation anglophone-at-home Chinese in Markham together with Mandarin and Cantonese speakers and you've got a much larger "Chinese" mass that completely dominates other minorities (Now, whether that has any relevance as an identity category unto itself is another matter.)

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[b]But in the 416 where the population is very, very mixed and no minority group is seen as dominant the candidates/MPs are almost always white such as in Scarborough, Downsview, Weston, etc.[/b]

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A fairer point. There's a bloc of white Liberal MPs in outer 416 at the moment that's largely been locked in since 1988 and only now is showing signs of turnover--Wappel, Cullen and so on. Yasmin Ratansi replaced David Collenette in Don Valley East, for instance.

But there's also something to be said about "less visible" Euro-minorities that nonetheless have strong internal political affinities. Karygiannis is Greek, and got his start from the Greek blob in Scarborough. Volpe is Italian, and his riding takes in that Vaughan rode corridor. Mario Silva is Portuguese, and his riding very closely overlaps the teal area on the map. The Ukrainian community is massive in Central Etobicoke, and Borys Wrzesnewskyj replaced Allan Rock there.

Oh, and for what it's worth, the sitatuation in outer 416 with visible minority MPPs is a bit better: Margarett Best (and Mary-Ann Chambers before her), Bas Balkissoon and Shafiq Qaadri.

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Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:
[b]

But in the 416 where the population is very, very mixed ...[/b]

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The 416, as a whole, is no longer a meaningful division in terms of the concentration of the visible minority population. There is an increasingly clear division -- the "old city of Toronto" is getting whiter, the "former city suburbs" were majority VM in the last published census, and the burbs that border the City are closer to the "former burbs" numbers than the "old City" numbers.

The City of Toronto wards with the lowest percentage of visible minorities are "old City of Toronto" wards. A friend of mine once sent me the ranked list, which I cannot find now. So, if you poke through the ward profiles individually at [url=http://app.toronto.ca/wards/jsp/wards.jsp]http://app.toronto.ca/wards/js... , you can choose the "ethnocultural" link on the next page for each individual ward. "Visible Minority" populations are at the top of the second page for each such link. You will see that the Non-visible minority population (which is listed as "All Others", given that the chart lists the visible minority nunmbers) is 84% in Ward 22 (east St Paul's) and 84% in Ward 13 (High Park) -- i.e. the VM population in these two wards is only 16%. FYI, the overall VM percentage for the City of Toronto was 43% in 2001.

Scarborough used to be white; those days have long passed. The "old City" has seen property values increase, as the time required per km for commuting has increased. The "old City" is getting whiter and whiter. Many people in the old City believe that the burbs still are all white. When you get as far as Scugog township (i.e. northern Durham region), that's still largely true.

But when you look at the burbs that border the City, they tend to have higher VM populations than the "old City", but lower than Rexdale/Scarborough. For example, Bramalea-Gore-Malton was 49% VM in the 2001 census, Markham-Unionville was 71% VM, and Mississauga East-Cooksville was 44% VM. Even a riding like Ajax-Pickering (at 26%) has a higher VM population than several "old City" wards.

IMO, the more that commuting troubles make life in the central City more attractive, the higher prices will go, and the lower the VM population in the most central of city areas will grow.

So Robo and Lord Palmerston, I am not sure what your point is. At present, the percentage of vis min M.P.s in 416 is 0. Are you saying that the vis min percentage of 416, or Don Valley West is close to 0 (Olivia Chow is the sole exception)? If not, and the Stats Can numbers appear to show that the mumbers are still quite high, are you comfortable with that representation of vis mins from 416 in our federal parliament?

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[b] Karygiannis is Greek, and got his start from the Greek blob in Scarborough. [/b]

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Er...from the WHAT? [img]confused.gif" border="0[/img]

[ 15 January 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by The_Tom:
[b]

Chow + Ratansi = 2/22.

Not great by any means. But not 0.[/b]

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But of the Liberal-held seats that would be 1/19.

That is nothing to write home about, and does not seem to justify appointing or nominating a white woman over a visible minority woman or man.