Opinion: Civic election outcome finally reflects BC's ethnic diversity

Opinion: Civic election outcome finally reflects BC's growing ethnic diversity

Vancouver City Hall (Shutterstock)

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by Simrath Grewal, who is a Senior Consultant at Earnscliffe Strategies.

As the results of the municipal elections rolled in across British Columbia over the weekend of October 15, it became clear that voters wanted change.

Numerous incumbent mayors and councillors were swept out of office as voters identified new representatives who promised swift action on pressing issues such as housing and public safety.

In this election, however, there was also a big change in who was voting and who they were voting for.

A closer look tells the story of a changing BC — one that’s younger and much more diverse than in elections past. Several municipalities elected younger and more diverse councils than ever before.

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The most significant breakthrough was in Vancouver, where Ken Sim became the city’s first mayor of Chinese descent. When Sim punched through that glass ceiling, he brought along with him a team of new city councillors, Park Board commissioners, and School Board trustees, some of whom were of East or South Asian descent, such as Lenny Zhou and Angela Haer.

Outside of Vancouver, the City of Delta elected not one but two racialized individuals to City Council for the first time in that jurisdiction’s 143-year history. Prince George and Williams Lake both elected a person of colour as mayor. In Burnaby, the majority of councillors are now people of colour. In Abbotsford, Dave Sidhu became the first person of colour ever to top the polls.

Finally, dozens of new millennial candidates were elected for the first time across the province as that generation takes its place as the largest demographic of voters in BC.

These are important changes that will have impacts on both future campaigns and how these cities are run. After all, these racialized communities have been contributing taxes, sending their children to these schools, and visiting these parks — so it’s about time their voices were reflected at decision-making tables across the province.

I believe we’re going to see a lot more of this in the years to come as Canada further embraces diversity, demographic changes, and an evolving media landscape.

A leading factor in the changing faces of City Council is that more people of colour feel empowered to run for office. This is happening because they are finally getting support from slates and individuals in positions of power that hadn’t previously existed.

There’s an emerging understanding and a commitment to the fact that younger people and people of colour have important contributions to our communities that should be reflected in our elected representatives. While more needs to be done to improve that presence, things are clearly changing for the better.

This change in direction is in part a result of our province’s history with immigration. BC saw some of the earliest immigration from South and East Asian countries. In recent years, Canada has rightly increased our immigration quotas and proactively invited people from all over the world as our workforce rapidly ages. This trend will only increase as Metro Vancouver plans to accommodate one million more residents in the next 20 years.

In the case of Vancouver, Ken Sim’s campaign has credited their Asian outreach strategy as the key to increasing voter turnout in those demographics, with some polls showing Sim having a 30% lead over the incumbent mayor, Kennedy Stewart, amongst ethnic-Chinese voters.

That outreach is in large part driven by a changing media landscape that’s empowering journalists and hosts who represent the diverse demographics that make up British Columbia.

Emerging journalists from diverse backgrounds are telling the stories of these communities while also giving racialized communities a familiar face who can deliver news to them about their priorities. We’ve seen this notably in Surrey where a major demographic split occurred on important issues such as policing models. There were very clear demographic divides on the issue of policing in Surrey, with various communities viewing it from different lenses and perspectives.

Media isn’t just changing on our televisions and radio stations, but also on emerging new media like WeChat and WhatsApp. These apps are playing larger roles in disseminating information and opinion, especially in the East and South Asian communities.

WeChat and WhatsApp allow information to be shared and received in languages users understand and from friends they trust, and this can be a game-changer when trying to build trust with a campaign narrative and policy positions.

As I’m often reminded, this isn’t our grandparents’ British Columbia. Our changing demographics being (finally) represented on municipal councils across the province is just the first step. In 2022, our province is young, diverse, and breaking barriers.

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