Only 12% of voters from Indigenous communities voted in the 2018 provincial election, while overall turnout in Quebec was 66%. The duty met with experts and Indigenous leaders to understand these results, as October 3 approached. With an unprecedented number of Indigenous candidates running for office this year, will communities turn out more to the polls?
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers see a slight increase [au prochain scrutin] “says Ghislain Picard, Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (APQNL). He argues that Aboriginal issues have occupied more public space in recent years, and that several candidates from First Peoples are running in provincial elections. Nine candidates have been announced so far — a historic number in Quebec.
According to Élections Québec data collected by The dutythe average participation rate of Aboriginal communities is 15% for the elections held between 2012 and 2018. As for Quebec as a whole during this period, a drop in participation was observed in the communities, this being dropped from 19% to 12%.
According to Mr. Picard, the low turnout is due in particular to the fact that the right to vote for Aboriginal people is relatively recent, granted to Quebec in 1969. He points out that the link between the communities and the Canadian government is stronger, since it is acts as their main interlocutor because of the Indian Act, particularly in terms of funding: “At the community level, people do not always make the connection between their reality and the role of the Government of Quebec. »
“Although participation remains marginal, communities feel more challenged by federal than provincial elections,” confirms Simon Dabin, a doctoral student in political science at the Université de Montréal, who studies Aboriginal participation in democratic institutions.
Since the polling divisions between the provincial and federal systems often differ, The duty was not able to compare the turnout of all Indigenous communities in Quebec between the 2018 Quebec elections and the 2019 federal elections. he difference with the provincial level remains minimal, however. For example, in the Atikamekw community of Wemotaci, participation in the provincial vote was 10% in 2018; in the 2019 federal election, it was 19%.
A “colonial system”
” The vote [autochtone] always contradicts the fact that Canada or Quebec is not their country. So why go vote? For many indigenous thinkers, going to vote almost amounts to legitimizing the colonial system,” illustrates Simon Dabin.
Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Montreal, Mathieu Arsenault recalls that the granting of the right to vote by the Canadian government and the provinces in the 1960s aimed “at the assimilation of First Nations as Canadian citizens” , and not the consideration of their claims within democratic institutions.
This ambivalent report of indigenous communities to the vote is added to the fact that the majority of them do not hold strategic weight in their constituency, notes Simon Dabin, which can deter indigenous voters from going to the polls. In Quebec, only the electoral divisions of Ungava and Duplessis had in 2018 a rate of more than 10% of indigenous voters. “But it can be a phenomenon that changes over time, because it is a population with a strong demographic increase”, adds the researcher.
Participations at the antipodes
While voter turnout remains minimal, some communities stand out from the trend, reflecting their divergent positions on the electoral system. “Some people feel they have to vote to influence national policy. Others, on the contrary, believe that by participating in the vote, they will lessen their sovereignty and harm their demands for self-determination”, explains Mr. Arsenault, specifying that it is above all at the local level that the electoral process attracts the most people.
The Innu community of Essipit and the Abenaki community of Odanak, for example, are among those actively participating in the electoral process. They have a respective participation rate of 53% and 41% in the 2018 elections.
“We encourage people to go and vote,” explains the head of Essipit, Martin Dufour. We want to make our voice heard. He explains the strong participation of his community, among other things, by a habit and by the immediate proximity of Essipit with the municipality of Les Escoumins, which share access to several public services.
Conversely, many communities completely dissociate themselves from the Quebec electoral event. In the last ballot, four communities had zero voter turnout, including two from the Mohawk Nation.
“We don’t participate in elections that are outside our system of governance,” said Kahnawake Chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer, indicating that this is a political position of the Mohawk Nation that goes back several centuries.
She notes that electoral abstention has other historical roots. From 1857 to 1960, an Aboriginal man wishing to exercise his right to vote first had to renounce his Indian status, in addition to meeting certain criteria established by the federal government. As for women, they were excluded from the electoral franchise.
“In people’s minds, voting means no longer being Indian,” she concludes. This idea has been passed down from generation to generation. »
Indigenous representation
While it is difficult to predict whether Aboriginal candidates will have an effect on the vote in the communities on October 3, Simon Dabin observed in his research that participation in the federal government increases when Aboriginal candidates present themselves. “That there are people who look like them encourages people to vote. »
“It’s not because the communities don’t vote that they don’t want Quebec politics to take their interests into consideration,” argues historian Mathieu Arsenault. He believes that the election of aboriginal deputies can ensure the discussion of aboriginal claims in the National Assembly, but specifies that they would remain a minority within a government that represents the interests of the entire population of Quebec.
“Reconciliation will go through representation mechanisms that will give them real power over the colonial majority,” he argues, adding that the communities are already putting forward their proposals.