Canadian prime minister-elect Justin Trudeau was not the only winner in Canada’s election this week: The nation’s Aboriginal community saw a record 10 members elected to Parliament — up from seven in 2011 — in a victory for a community that said it was neglected throughout nearly a decade of Conservative rule.
The election also saw a record-breaking 54 First Nation candidates run for office. However, Aborigines are to occupy just 3 percent of the 338 seats in the House of Commons of Canada. Indigenous people comprise 4.3 percent of the population, according to Statistics Canada, a government agency that collects census data.
Trudeau’s Liberal Party won a majority of the seats in Parliament and ended former prime minister Stephen Harper’s more than nine years in power in Monday’s elections. Of the 18 Aboriginal candidates who ran for the Liberals, eight won seats.
Trudeau campaigned on a promise of a new era of respect for indigenous people and committed to increased consultation, improved language rights, a national inquiry into missing and murdered women and more money for education. He also promised to attend future meetings of the Assembly of First Nations.
Chiefs have often complained about a lack of money for tribal education, the poor conditions of reserves, a frustrating process for settling land claims, the government’s refusal to call an inquiry into the high number of murdered and missing Aboriginal women and Harper’s reluctance to meet face-to-face. There is also a growing empowerment of young indigenous people who are angered by the disparities between their standard of living and that of the rest of Canada.
Newly elected Liberal member of Parliament Dan Vandal in Saint Boniface-Saint Vital, Manitoba, thanked voters for ushering in a record number of indigenous people into office.
“First Nations issues will now come to the forefront in the House of Commons,” he said. “Whether it’s murdered and missing indigenous women or education on reserves, a resolution for Metis land claim issues, we’re going to get a higher profile and hopefully a resolution of those issues.”
Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak estimated that more than 11,000 new Aboriginal voters went to the polls in northern Manitoba alone.
Bellegarde said his office is still working to confirm Aboriginal voter turnout but estimates it jumped from 40 percent to more than 50 percent this year.
Aboriginal voter numbers increased for several reasons.
Bellegarde said some Aboriginal chiefs bussed residents to the polling stations and some closed their band offices ahead of the election to rally communities to vote. Community members also launched a “Rock the Vote” campaign on social media to mobilize young people to vote in Canada’s east and mid-west provinces.
However, the most significant motivator to rally voters was the desire for change and to oust Harper.
“I voted to get Harper out,” 35-year-old Vancouver resident Lorelei Williams said. “We needed a government who cared about our indigenous people.”
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