Political Participation and Representation of South Asian and Chinese Canadians: Evidence from the Greater Toronto Area

Using the Political Opportunity Structure thesis as the analytical framework, this paper examines the political participation and representation of the South Asians and the Chinese in the Great Toronto Area the largest and the most diverse metropolitan region in Canada. The study found that the South Asians have achieved a higher level of representation in both the federal and provincial governments than the Chinese, but they are under-represented in municipal governments. The Chinese are consistently under-represented in all three levels of government variations in Canadian official language proficiency. The results also seem to support (2017) hypothesis that immigrants from autocratic countries of origin have a lower propensity to vote and stand for election.