By Paul Laronde

The 2009 APRC was jointly sponsored by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the University of Western Ontario and the National Association of Friendship Centres. This was the third APRC featuring 130 workshops with over 250 presenters. The event brought together researchers, students, policy makers, Aboriginal leaders and other national and international interested parties to present and debate new research on Canadian Aboriginal issues. Aboriginal people in Canada are recognized as belonging to three groups: First Nations, Métis and Inuit.

Elections Canada participated in the conference by organizing a workshop on Aboriginal electoral participation in Canada. The objective of the workshop was to deepen the knowledge base on Aboriginal turnout in Canada and examine factors that engage Aboriginal electors in voting.

Elections Canada’s workshop featured three presentations by Canadian academics on factors leading to participation or non-participation of Aboriginal electors in Canada and potential ways to encourage and facilitate voting.

Lesley A. Jacobs (Professor, York University) presented his paper, Mapping the Legal Consciousness of Aboriginal Voters: Understanding Voting Rights Mobilization. In his paper, Professor Jacobs applies the framework of legal consciousness to conceptualize voting rights mobilization among First Nations people in Canada. According to the author, voting rights mobilization for First Nations electors can be understood as an expression of what those rights mean to them. His paper distinguishes between three forms of legal consciousness – enfranchisement, citizen plus and disenfranchisement – to define different modes by which First Nations electors construct their legal voter status.

In the second presentation, Allison Harell (Professor, Queen’s University), Dimitrios Panagos (Professor, Royal Military College) and Scott Matthews (Professor, Queen’s University) shared important findings from their paper, Explaining Aboriginal Turnout in Federal Elections: Evidence from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In this paper, the authors examined a unique dataset produced by the Institute for Social Research at York University, the Equality, Security and Community Survey, which includes a sample of Aboriginals living in the Prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba). This paper examines factors specific to Aboriginal communities that may promote turnout, including differences across First Nations communities, involvement in Aboriginal politics and relevance of Aboriginal issues. The authors found little evidence of differences between on-reserve and off-reserve electors in their willingness to vote, but significant differences across bands and language groups.

Lastly, Paul Howe (Professor, University of New Brunswick) and David Bedford (Professor, University of New Brunswick) presented their paper, The Electoral Participation of Aboriginals in Canada. The authors analyzed patterns of electoral participation among Aboriginal Canadians, drawing on a large-scale Statistics Canada survey (The General Social Survey Cycle 17) designed to support broad-based analysis of social, civic and political engagement among Canadians at large. The paper examines socio-demographic factors, such as age, education, income and place of residence (urban vs. rural), that are found to greatly effect whether an elector participates or not. Confidence in political institutions, sentiments of community attachment and other attitudinal factors are also linked to voting. Practical hindrances to participation, such as residential mobility were also discussed. The authors added there is much more to learn about Aboriginal electoral participation and additional research is needed.

The session concluded with comments from Tonio Sadik, Senior Director, Policy Coordination and Operations at the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). Mr. Sadik spoke about the relevance of the research, noting activities the AFN carried out in partnership with Elections Canada during the 2008 Federal General Election to facilitate voter turnout among First Nations electors. He described recent amendments to the Canada Elections Act requiring proof of identity and residence when voting as making a challenging situation even more difficult. He remarked the scope of research on Aboriginal electoral participation needs to be expanded and enriched while quantifying the effects of legislative changes on turnout rates.

For more information on the conference and workshop, please visit the Aboriginal Voters section on Elections Canada’s website at www.elections.ca. Full papers and presentations will be available in English and French in late spring 2009.

Paul Laronde is an Analyst in the Elections Canada Research and Parliamentary Affairs Directorate