Nominated Aboriginal Candidates To Date
LAST UPDATED: January 13, 2009 (and about time, too!)
[This post was starting to look ugly with all the deletions and updates, so I'll just put the date last updated at the top instead of marking up all the copy.]
This past Saturday was the summer solstice, often celebrated as National Aboriginal Day, and to mark that day, as well as the very moving apology delivered the other week by Canada's political leaders to aboriginal leaders and the students who went to residental schools, I thought it might be a good time to see how the parties are doing in nominating candidates from Métis, Inuit and Indian backgrounds.
This list is a first pass [UPDATE: a work in progress; FINAL UPDATE: my best information as at the end of the campaign], and not to be considered authoritative. If you know of aboriginal candidates not included here, please do let me know. I am not to date aware of any Bloc Québécois candidates with an aboriginal background, for example.
Of the other major parties, the NDP nominated eleven aboriginal candidates, the Liberals had eight candidates (two of them incumbent Members of Parliament), the Conservatives had four aboriginal candidates (two of them incumbent M.P.s), and the Green Party also had four (including a former M.P.). There also wound up being six candidates from the First Peoples National Party of Canada, and two from the Peoples' Political Power Party (both shown in this database under "Oth").
Nancy Karetak-Lindell, the current Liberal M.P. for Nunavut, has previously announced that she will not be running for re-election. Thus, there are currently five aboriginal Members of Parliament, of whom four are running for re-election.
Of the ridings with the highest proportions of aboriginal identification (> 7.5%) (2001 Census), Nunavut has four aboriginal candidates, Churchill, MB has one and Desnethé – Missinippi – Churchill River, SK has four, Western Arctic, NT has two, and Labrador, NL and Kenora, ON each have one as well.
In the last round of by-elections, the riding of Desnethé – Missinippi – Churchill River (DMCR), SK was the first occasion I know of where the three major political parties ran an all-aboriginal slate. Will that be an anomaly, or will we see more occurrences of all-aboriginal tickets in the predominantly aboriginal ridings in the forthcoming general election? We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. [UPDATE: However, no sooner did I click "publish post", when a reader wrote to say that Métis Brian Morin has just been renominated for the NDP in DMCR, for a rematch with Rob Clarke. FURTHER UPDATE: This election the distinction goes to Nunavut, the only riding in which all four major parties are running aboriginal candidates.]
[UPDATE: I first went to press without including Winnipeg South, M.P. Conservative M.P. Rod Bruinooge, rather a large omission since he is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs, and I saw him participating in the apology ceremonies.]
Meantime, in case you guessed, yes I am working my way up to building the Browse Candidates page, and being able to provide searches of various kinds about candidates' ethnicity and aboriginal identification, amongst other characteristics. As soon as I can give some preliminary counts on a breakdown of candidates by ethnicity and political party, I will be sure to post it here in the blog, even if the search functionality is not ready yet.
[This post was starting to look ugly with all the deletions and updates, so I'll just put the date last updated at the top instead of marking up all the copy.]
This past Saturday was the summer solstice, often celebrated as National Aboriginal Day, and to mark that day, as well as the very moving apology delivered the other week by Canada's political leaders to aboriginal leaders and the students who went to residental schools, I thought it might be a good time to see how the parties are doing in nominating candidates from Métis, Inuit and Indian backgrounds.
This list is a first pass [UPDATE: a work in progress; FINAL UPDATE: my best information as at the end of the campaign], and not to be considered authoritative. If you know of aboriginal candidates not included here, please do let me know. I am not to date aware of any Bloc Québécois candidates with an aboriginal background, for example.
Of the other major parties, the NDP nominated eleven aboriginal candidates, the Liberals had eight candidates (two of them incumbent Members of Parliament), the Conservatives had four aboriginal candidates (two of them incumbent M.P.s), and the Green Party also had four (including a former M.P.). There also wound up being six candidates from the First Peoples National Party of Canada, and two from the Peoples' Political Power Party (both shown in this database under "Oth").
Nancy Karetak-Lindell, the current Liberal M.P. for Nunavut, has previously announced that she will not be running for re-election. Thus, there are currently five aboriginal Members of Parliament, of whom four are running for re-election.
Of the ridings with the highest proportions of aboriginal identification (> 7.5%) (2001 Census), Nunavut has four aboriginal candidates, Churchill, MB has one and Desnethé – Missinippi – Churchill River, SK has four, Western Arctic, NT has two, and Labrador, NL and Kenora, ON each have one as well.
In the last round of by-elections, the riding of Desnethé – Missinippi – Churchill River (DMCR), SK was the first occasion I know of where the three major political parties ran an all-aboriginal slate. Will that be an anomaly, or will we see more occurrences of all-aboriginal tickets in the predominantly aboriginal ridings in the forthcoming general election? We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. [UPDATE: However, no sooner did I click "publish post", when a reader wrote to say that Métis Brian Morin has just been renominated for the NDP in DMCR, for a rematch with Rob Clarke. FURTHER UPDATE: This election the distinction goes to Nunavut, the only riding in which all four major parties are running aboriginal candidates.]
[UPDATE: I first went to press without including Winnipeg South, M.P. Conservative M.P. Rod Bruinooge, rather a large omission since he is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs, and I saw him participating in the apology ceremonies.]
Meantime, in case you guessed, yes I am working my way up to building the Browse Candidates page, and being able to provide searches of various kinds about candidates' ethnicity and aboriginal identification, amongst other characteristics. As soon as I can give some preliminary counts on a breakdown of candidates by ethnicity and political party, I will be sure to post it here in the blog, even if the search functionality is not ready yet.
Labels: 40th General Election Nominations, Aboriginal Candidates
posted by The Pundits' Guide at
11:04 PM
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