martin14 wrote:
dodobird wrote:
I'm also more inclined to believe that its a split vote then a conservatives dont see colour thing.
Same here.. anyone have the actual vote tallies ?
For every bigoted action, there is an affirmative action reaction. I'm sure it was going to be in Newton's next set of laws.
I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. Calgary has grown into a large city, as has Edmonton, both of more than a million people. Both have also had a large influx of younger people, and the average age of Calgary at least is well below the national average, and, if I remember correctly, has the youngest population of people in any major city. Edmonton is likely along the same lines. Both have large universities and many of the smaller cities in the province have experienced massive population growth due to migration of Canadians from other less well off provinces to the province that was experiencing the largest boom.
Generally, younger people do tend to be a bit more liberal. Many of the people here are also transitive -- not a lot of them want to live in the province their entire lives. Much like the family I have here, the mass majority want to make money and get out of the major cities, from what I've seen.
We also have to keep in mind that, in general, conservatism in Canada is not like conservatism elsewhere. I think too many people like to draw parallels between conservative movements in places like the United States, France, England, Italy, Germany and elsewhere and try to apply them to Canada, forgetting that Canada is quite different from other places. While I have no doubt that there are similarities in the movements, overall, I feel that conservatism in Canada is a bit more liberal than it is elsewhere. Likewise, I cannot appropriately draw lines between the NDP and Liberal Parties to parties that may exist closer to the left viewpoint elsewhere in other nations, since it simply isn’t the same. Making assumptions that the Liberals are horribly socialist is just as bad as making assumptions that the Conservatives are horribly racist, because parties exist in other nations that do have supporters with those platforms. I would not say that the American democrats are corrupt because the Liberals turned out to be corrupt a few years back, as an example.
While Calgary and the province in general seem to be a bastion for Conservative Party support, we have to keep in mind that Canada seems to have a bit of a geographical bias playing a role in votes. Under Liberal governments, the West has suffered, and people who live here are going to remember and recognize that. There is a distinct incentive amongst voters out here to, hence, on a Federal and Provincial scale, vote for the Conservatives who are more likely to keep the wants and needs of the West at heart, rather than the more Three City bias that is present amongst the Liberals. This is just my view. With a nation of such size and differences, geography was bound to play a role. While religion and such also have an impact, when it comes to major city centers I think potential negative (and I’m not trying to say religion is negative here) aspects perceived from religion are going to play a reduced role.
At the mayoral level, these factors are less of a concern. While there is no doubt going to be a lean to continue the same voting trend for a Conservative candidate, and I bet there was some vote splitting, the demographics of Calgary have changed and are younger, so a concentrated vote from the younger population, which is what happened in Calgary, can likely offset the trend which would otherwise have occurred. Pitfalls present at the provincial and national level when voting are not present at the mayoral level. Plus, I don’t think that the general feeling towards the outgoing mayor was all that positive, which isn’t likely going to help anyone following in his footsteps.
However, I do think it is taking a step too far in assuming that this is a racial issue. I do honestly feel that if there were a surge of racial bigotry, it would be offset by any affirmative action that would have occurred. I think it wasn’t racial pride or hate that played a role, but general racial indifference. Having lived out in the West for years now, race never really seems to pop up a lot, especially in Calgary (which, as mentioned, is quite diverse). In fact, discussion about race (especially in relation to topics about being disenfranchised and breaking through barriers) was a lot more present in the news when I lived in Ontario, and, as mentioned by JJ, seems to be a far more focal point to discuss in cosmopolitan areas.
My initial response to the fact that the mayor of the city I live in for part of the year is now Muslim was, well, “so?” I did not even notice that he was Muslim as a point of interest, just as I do not note that the leader of the Wildrose Alliance at the provincial level is a woman. People in London, however, could not get over that the Mayor was Italian when I lived there. I do feel that the insinuation that “conservatives see colour” is a little off base from the responses here, as is the general perception of Calgary which many folks seem to have.
I don’t have a solid personal opinion. From what I’ve seen and read the new Mayor has great qualifications, and his internet/youth approach most definitely worked, so I think he’ll do well for the city. I do feel that for the many voters who went out and voted him in, they did so because of his platforms, and it clearly shows that he has a decisive result over the other two, more conservative candidates, who I’m sure had significant support because they were more conservative in their platforms and less because the more liberal candidate was Muslim. I’m saying that it could happen that people voted in a bigoted fashion, but I don’t think that many people, or even enough to change the vote drastically, voted because of race. I do have a feeling that there was some vote splitting between the two conservative candidates but I also heard that there was some unpopularity for both of those candidates as well – I don’t know the details of that, since I didn’t partake in this vote (in Edmonton currently). I didn’t even note his religion until I came to CKA and read a bit, so most of this is going to be me playing Devil’s Advocate. For the record (since the NDP tag to offset it is gone) I’m not actually a conservative.
Also, a solid laugh out to bootlegga.
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