Assembly of First Nations identifies ridings where First Nations voters could sway results

Candace Maracle · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 04, 2025 5:00 PM EDT | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

First Nations voters could signifier national predetermination results successful 36 ridings crossed Canada, according to the Assembly of First Nations.

Using census information connected colonisation and Elections Canada 2021 voting results, the AFN identified ridings wherever the percent of First Nations voters is higher than 2021's borderline of triumph (between the winning campaigner and runner-up) or wherever First Nations radical marque up 10 per cent or much of each eligible voters.​

The AFN also pointed retired ridings wherever caller boundaries person resulted successful accrued percentages of First Nations voters, specified as Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt, Kapuskasing—Timmins—Mushkegowuk, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa and Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake.

Cara Currie Hall, who is Cree from Montana First Nation in Alberta, was 1 of the co-founders of 2015's Rock the Indigenous Vote campaign. It sought to mobilize Indigenous voters after the Stephen Harper government's Fair Elections Act changed elector recognition requirements, which advocates said effectively disenfranchised galore Indigenous voters.

Elections Canada says elector turnout connected reserves successful 2015 was 61.5 per cent, a 14 per cent leap from 2011 and the highest turnout since tracking began successful 2004.

"We had swingability," Currie Hall said.

She said voting successful elections does not interruption Indigenous rights but alternatively presents an accidental to put guardant requests.

"The pact is not with Canada, the pact is with the Crown, but we besides are citizens of a country, truthful we person dual citizenship successful our Indigenous nations and wrong the federation authorities of Canada. We person a chiseled accidental to usage that to our advantage," she said.

"Your dependable is your vote; it sounds cliché but it's really perfectly existent and the astir almighty radical to each person are the radical who vote, and they don't get to go elected without you. It's truly imperative, I think, to admit the powerfulness that's successful your manus close present and that this is the time."

To ballot oregon not to vote

Others disagree.

Kaity Adams, who is Onondaga, Deer Clan, from Six Nations, said she is simply a national of the Haudenosaunee and Onondaga Nation, not Canadian, and has ne'er voted in provincial oregon federal elections.

She said declaring herself a Canadian national by voting successful the national predetermination volition proceed assimilation of Indigenous peoples "until there's nary much left."

She said the Two Row wampum, the archetypal pact betwixt settlers and the Haudenosaunee, indicates a nation-to-nation statement that inactive exists today.

"We should beryllium sitting present warring for our places astatine that array wherever we're expected to be rightfully arsenic federation states, individually," she said.

Marc Merilainen, a subordinate of Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, said helium hasn't voted since 2015 but is considering voting successful this national election. 

He said the Canadian authorities needs accrued Indigenous practice and helium doesn't deliberation it's an "either/or" situation between choosing sovereignty oregon voting successful Canada's governmental system.

He said helium thinks a batch of radical underestimate the powerfulness of the Indigenous vote.

"We tin plaything elections successful definite cardinal ridings," said Merilainen.

"We tin absorption connected electing leaders that prioritize the things that we want: reconciliation, onshore rights, cleanable water, housing. Many of these issues necessitate implementing like, say, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action. They necessitate radical successful authorities to person these things."

The AFN has released its predetermination priorities, and is seeking commitments from enactment leaders connected economical reconciliation, Canada-U.S. commercialized and borderline mobility, the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.