Phil Triadafilopoulos on Conservative campaign mistakes

November 23, 2015

In the wake of recent assaults on Muslims, Phil Triadafilopoulos spoke to The Tyee saying the Conservatives were taught a lesson by their failed re-election campaign. Even though polls and research showed public support for issues like the niqab ban, it came with a cost. “Last election was a tough case of whether you can do two things at once – compete for the votes of new Canadians while scapegoating one segment of new Canadians, and I think the result was negative,” he said. “So, the likelihood of [the Conservatives] trying to repeat that experiment… is low.” He said part of the reason is that immigrants to Canada become citizens faster than other nations taking in newcomers and they also vote as much as people born in Canada, so it is politically dangerous to target immigrants. Phil Triadafilopoulos, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, specializes in immigration policies. The full article is available here.