Will the ethnic vote give the Conservatives a majority in 2011?

It would have been an unthinkable question ten or maybe even five years ago. Now I think it's a very real possibility. My new Sun column:

Of course there will be a federal election this year.

The last one was in October of 2008. An election this spring would be about two-and-a-half years since the last one — which, historically, is a long term for a minority government. More recently, it’s the same period that elapsed between the 2006 and 2008 elections, and longer than the term of Paul Martin’s minority from 2004 to 2006.

So there won’t likely be a backlash if Prime Minister Stephen Harper takes the initiative to go to the polls for the bland reason of renewing his mandate, as he did last time. And anyone who says otherwise will surely be reminded of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff’s renewed sabre-rattling about forcing an election himself.

Opinion polls have been steady for months — the Conservatives have held a lead that fluctuates from three to 10 points.

But that national number hides more meaningful local developments. The breakthrough byelection win of the Conservatives in the Toronto suburb of Vaughan shows that some seats formerly regarded as strongholds for the Liberals are now at risk.

The winner of that byelection, former police chief Julian Fantino, not only bolsters the Conservatives’ reputation as the tough-on-crime party, but it also represents the party’s inroads to ethnic communities who once defaulted to the Liberals.

If having Fantino, a national Italian-Canadian role model, as a Toronto-area lieutenant for the party causes 10% of Italian Canadians to consider voting Conservative, that could be enough to tip a few close ridings into the Tory column.

Conservative ethnic outreach continues at full speed, especially in ridings like Brampton West, also in the Toronto area, where a large Sikh community will be presented with credible, well-organized Conservative candidates who are Sikh. If both Liberal and Conservative candidates are Sikh, which party would win a largely Sikh riding?

Vancouver’s Chinese community has already given us such a test. The riding of Richmond, B.C., is majority Chinese-Canadian, and both the Liberals and Conservatives fielded Chinese-Canadian candidates in 2008. In that contest, Tory Alice Wong beat former Liberal cabinet minister Raymond Chan by nearly 20 points.

A glance at Harper’s Senate appointments shows how this approach to building Conservative minority role models has been fortified, with Indo-Canadian appointees like Vim Kochhar and Salma Ataullahjan, Jamaican-Canadian Don Meredith, Korean-Canadian Yonah Martin, Jews like Linda Frum, Irving Gerstein and Judith Seidman, etc.

Of course, those senators are more than just ethnic symbols. But their symbolism is not lost on communities who once never considered voting for anyone but the Liberals.

Canada’s political press is based in Ottawa and naturally focuses on Parliament and polls, and big national news stories. But many election battles are fought at a neighbourhood level and, if just a half-dozen ridings flip from Liberal to Conservative, Harper will win his elusive majority government. Don’t count it out.

But if Harper slouches back to power with just another minority, isn’t a win still a win? Part of governing requires Parliament’s co-operation. But much doesn’t — from appointing judges to deciding foreign policy. And from a strategic point of view, how many elections in a row can the Liberal Party continue to lose?

If the Conservatives do get a majority, look for them to reintroduce Bill C-12. That bill would grant 30 new seats to the regions of Canada that have had the most population growth in the past decade — 18 to Ontario, seven to B.C. and five to Alberta. The opposition parties have opposed it, for fear of offending Quebec, whose population is stagnant.

But note the regions that are affected: Precisely those neighbourhoods in Canada teeming with new immigrants.

It’s obvious why the Bloc Quebecois opposes Bill C-12 — they want maximum control over Canada’s Parliament.

But it’s increasingly obvious why the Liberals oppose C-12, too. Do they really want seven more Alice Wongs or 18 more Julian Fantinos in Parliament?