Indigenous voters played a big role in swelling the turn-out at the polls in Canada yesterday. There was a concerted effort to get aboriginal communities involved in a political process many feel far-removed from.
It has taken years to engage indigenous people as they were once banned from the process. It was only in 1960, that aboriginal Canadians were no longer required to give up their treaty rights and renounce their status under the Indian Act in order to qualify for the vote.
A record 54 indigenous candidates ran in this election
Now a record number of indigenous people will be sitting in Canada’s House of Commons. 10 Members of Parliament will represent ridings in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.
Formerly there were seven indigenous MP’s. Most in yesterday’s election were Liberal candidates, in keeping with the wave that brought in a Liberal majority to Ottawa.
Some of the new MP’s include Jody Wilson-Raybould, a regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations, who is now the Member of Parliament for the newly created riding of Vancouver-Granville. She took over 40 per cent of the vote.
In the heart of Winnipeg, Robert Falcon-Ouellete, a former mayoral candidate, took 56 per cent of the vote in the Winnipeg Centre riding from popular NDP MP Pat Martin.
Leona Aglukkaq, the first Inuit MP, former Environment Minister, and one of four Conservative indigenous MP’s, was defeated yesterday along with one of the other two MP’s, The other two did not run in this election.
Justin Trudeau made big promises to indigenous people during the campaign including major improvements to First Nations education, $2.6 billion Cdn in new funding over four years, and a promise to call an inquiry into the 1200 missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. He also vowed to end ‘boil-water advisories’ on First Nations reserves within five years.
400 out of 618 First Nations in Canada had some kind of water problem between 2004 and 2014. Many live with the advisories on a continuous basis.
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