Tories winning battle for Chinese-Canadian dollars

GLEN MCGREGOR 

Published on: July 31, 2014

Judith Gustafsson / Ottawa Citizen

Despite the federal Liberals’ attempts, under leader Justin Trudeau, to win back ethnic voters, the Conservatives continue to raise more money from Chinese-Canadians than any other party,  new fundraising data suggests.

A Citizen analysis of seven years of party financial records show the Tories have effectively doubled the share of their donors who have Chinese surnames, while the Liberal support from this group remains about the same compared to 2007.

The data appear to indicate that the Tories’ ongoing ethnic outreach, spearheaded by cabinet minister Jason Kenney, is connecting with the fast-growing segment of the Canadian population that traces its roots to China and Taiwan.

The party’s more conservative approach to social issues and softened stance towards China may also be helping reach Chinese-Canadians who were once seen as more likely to support the Liberal Party.

For both parties, the money raised from Chinese-Canadians accounts for only a small share of total fundraising but could be a leading indicator of ballot-box support in the coming election.

Although the parties do not report the ethnicity of donors to Elections Canada, contributions from Chinese-Canadians can be roughly tracked because of the limited number of Chinese surnames. Most Chinese have one of about 100 common family names or their Romanized variants, such as Wong or Wang.  So common are the Chinese names that the expression “Old One Hundred Names” is used in China to refer to the average person.

In 2007, seven of every 1,000 contributors to the Conservatives had one of these common Chinese surnames, according to the Citizen analysis of  donors who gave more than $200 annually. But the 2013 numbers, reported earlier this month, show that share has nearly doubled, with 13 of every 1,000 with a Chinese name.

Over the same period, the number of contributors who gave to the Tories rose by 34 per cent, but the share with Chinese names outpaced that, rising by 173 per cent.

The share of Liberal support from the Chinese community has remained largely static since 2007, when 10 in 1,000 donors to the party had Chinese names.  That figure was unchanged in the 2013 filings, despite a surge in support for the party and its new leader, who was elected in April 2013.

The New Democrats appear to have the weakest level of support from Chinese-Canadians, the data show, with only three contributors in 1,000 with Chinese names.

Over the past two elections, the Conservatives have elected MPs in ridings with large Chinese populations, including the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, once held by the Liberals, and the Toronto riding of Willowdale. The Conservative party now counts at least five MPs with Chinese heritage in the caucus.

In the early days of his government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was leery of engagement with Mainland China and notably did not attend the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Since then, however, Harper has made official visits to China as the party aggressively courted Chinese voters at home.

To track Chinese-Canadian donations, the Citizen compared the names of donors in party’s annual financial returns to a list of more than 700 Chinese surnames and their Romanized variants. These did not include donors with common Anglicized variants of Chinese surnames also used by people from other cultures, such as Young or Lee.

The data also do not include donors who contributed less than $200 to a party in a single year, as their names are not listed in Elections Canada filings.