The Polarity of Arab Canadians' Political Affiliations

Abstract

This research looks at the political ideology and political affiliation of Arab Canadians. This specific population is especially interesting politically due to the intersections of different ethnicities, cultures, and religions. This fills the gap of quantitative research on the political choices of Arab-origin people in Canada, of which there is little to none. It also adds on to the literature on the voting patterns and partisanship of the larger population of visible minorities and/or immigrant origin Canadians, which previous research has not found statistically significant reasons of strong and consistent Liberal Party support by. This also provides an addition to the barren field of qualitative research on Arab Canadian political opinions. In order to analyze Arab Canadian vote choice, I built three primary datasets (Arab Canadian, immigrant Canadian, born Canadian) from the Canadian Election Study (CES) results from 2000 to 2021, and analyzed descriptive statistics and ran multinomial logistic regressions based on respondents' vote choice for patterns and significance. I hypothesize and confirm that Arab Canadians vote more consistently Liberal than born Canadians, despite also being more religious than the general population. The regressions show that the Canadian and immigrant populations are much more alike than Arab Canadians. I carry out twenty interviews with Arab Canadians to confirm and deepen the understanding of the quantitative results. The participants share that the strongest reason for their Liberal vote is Liberal rhetoric and values focused on multiculturalism and acceptance of Arabs/Muslims/immigrants, as well as their progressive values.