Here is the demographic evidence of the growing importance of the First Nations population and vote in western Canada that over time will increasingly impact election results.
Across Canada, cities are being reshaped by growing indigenous populations.
In the biggest cities on the prairies, and in smaller northern centres close to First Nations reserves, an indigenous population is growing in size and political influence. Already, changes at the local level are signalling a societal turn.
In the last few years, the concerns of many indigenous people, on issues such as murdered and missing women, the treatment of indigenous people in the justice and child-welfare systems, and the enduring impact of residential schools, have been prominent in national and local debates. ...
Look around Winnipeg's downtown and it's clear the city is in the midst of a demographic shift. In the elevated walkways that offer shelter from the legendary winds, it seems roughly half the people shopping, walking or stopping to chat, are indigenous. In fact, more than 70,000 residents identify as aboriginal. Like many the other cities with a growing indigenous population, Winnipeg has seen more than its share of racially charged conflict, but the signs of an increasingly prominent indigenous community are apparent.
Storefronts in Winnipeg's downtown now bear messages of greeting in indigenous languages, ranging from Cree to Dakota, Michif and Inuktitut, distributed by the local business association. At the University of Winnipeg, students who began their studies this year are now required to take a course on indigenous peoples and culture. A community group is petitioning to rename a street in Ojibwe. The national aboriginal broadcaster, APTN, headquartered on Portage Avenue, plans to expand to the United States. ...
Winnipeg is the largest of the 28 cities across Canada where the indigenous population has reached the symbolic threshold of 10 per cent of the broader community (including those rounded up from 9.5 per cent and higher), according to the 2011 National Household Survey.
Just 10 years earlier, in 2001, there were only 17 communities with indigenous populations of that size. The list will almost certainly grow once the results of the 2016 long-form census are available, and not just because indigenous people living off-reserve were among the groups considered at risk of being undercounted in 2011. First Nations and Inuit people tend to have higher fertility rates than the rest of the population: In 2006, it was 2.7 children per woman for Inuit women and 2.4 for First Nations women, compared to 1.8 for Métis women, and 1.6 for the population overall.
The city with the highest proportion of indigenous people in Canada is Prince Albert, Sask., a community of roughly 35,000 located 140 kilometres north of Saskatoon. It's considered a hub for many Northern communities, including 12 nearby First Nations reserves in the Prince Albert Grand Council. Over the decade, the city's indigenous population grew by 37 per cent, far faster than growth in the city overall. ...
NTERACTIVE BY MURAT YUKSELIR, RESEARCH BY RICK CASH / THE GLOBE AND MAIL » SOURCES: STATISTICS CANADA; MAPZEN; OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS; WHO’S ON FIRST
Over the last few years, a number of cities have ushered in such changes. Many places, including Winnipeg and Saskatoon, have declared a "year of reconciliation," responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report on the historical legacy of the residential schools system.
In Prince Rupert, B.C., the city with the second-highest proportion of indigenous people at more than 38 per cent, the school system last year made Sm'algyax language classes mandatory for all children through Grade 4.
In Regina, where the indigenous population makes up one in 10 people in the city, they now fly the Treaty Four flag in front of City Hall. ...
From 2001 to 2011, more than 100 communities of 10,000 people or more saw their indigenous population more than double. In part that's explained by the fact that the indigenous population is relatively young and many move to urban centres for further education or work (interestingly StatsCan found they're less likely than other groups to head to the big three of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver), but that's not the whole story.
In places like Corner Brook, for example, where the indigenous population grew more than 360 per cent, the change goes far beyond what migration and natural increase can explain. Between 2006 and 2011 the aboriginal identity population in Canada grew four times faster than the non-aboriginal population. This is partly explained by what's known as "ethnic mobility," the embrace of a previously unacknowledged indigenous identity. ...
Canada's cities are changing in ways that reflect not only its immigration policy, which has an outsize impact on its three biggest cities, but also the increasing prominence in many communities of its original peoples. In the years to come, as the indigenous population is projected to grow by as much as one million people by 2036, the weight of numbers will bring further change as governments, businesses and other institutions adapt.
I am really tired of political junkies treaing politics as if there is a deep chasm between one political party on the right, 2 or more parties on the left, and that this chasm is so vast and so wide that there is no way a leftie could convince someone on the right to join their team. Let's look at Western Canada as an example. It used to be very strongly NDP. Then 1993 came along, and Reform was able to capitalize on the populist sentiment that the NDP once represented. Now this region is very staunchly Conservative. Furthermore, Conservatives are always trying to appeal to working people and presenting a populist face, while the left just ignores this region. That is a key reason why BC ridings that voted NDP in 2005 voted Liberal this time around in spite of their corruption and that the current NDP-Green coalition is hanging by a weak thread.
Please, can someone on the left come and talk to us Western Canadians? The Greyhound cuts are disproportionately hurting the smaller communities that are key to Conservative victory, and this is an issue just crying out for federal government intervention. Show these communities in clear terms why the public policy programme advocated by the Conservatives is failing, and then maybe we can elect good MPs who will stand up for the communities rather than having to be embarassed to be from this part of the country.
Further to your point jerry, the Conservatives actually presented emission reduction targets in 2015, unlike the Liberals. If climate change was your issue, then an honest ranking of the parties on that issue would have placed the Conservatives ahead of the Liberals.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/greyhound-bus-cancellation-federal-fund...
I'm a political junkie who loves stats. I always have to check my own memories against the actual results. One needs to look at both the seats and the percentage of the vote to really get an idea of the history of voter swings. During the years that I volunteered in Burnaby-Douglas we saw voters mostly go back and forth between the Liberals and the Conservatives. For a few elections in a row the most popular corporate party candidate was a Liberal and he out polled the Conservatives but not the NDP. When that individual was no longer running the race looked more like the rest of the province in those days i.e. a battle between the Cons and NDP. In 2008 about 2/3's of the votes that left the Liberals went to the Cons and the NDP and Greens both gained about 17% each. I think that most voters switch back and forth between the Cons and Libs but there is a minority that switch between the Libs and NDP/Green.
The NDP lost its BC vote by adamantly taking the wrong side of the Constitutional Referendum. BC voters, like in Quebec, said no way leaving the Centre of the Universe led NDP on the wrong side of history and the majority of NDP voters.
It seems to me that for at least the last 10 years opinion polls have clearly shown there are many more Liberal-NDP switchers than Liberal-Conservative switchers. Polls over this period seem to show that very few Conservative supporters are willing to switch to any other party. This might change with the advent of Bernier's new party.
When Conservative voters are treated as this evil unreachable brand of voters by the left, resulting in the left not even trying to talk to them, does that come as a surprise?
When has the left treated Conservative voters as being an evil unreachable brand of voters? When has the left not tried to talk to them? In the last election the NDP even included a pledge to maintain balanced budgeting to attract conservative voters. They also soft pedalled changing Cannabis laws. What should leftist parties add to their platforms to attract conservatives?
I think the left is happy to talk TO them, but rarely WITH them.
The dynamics of each province are different but I still think that in actual elections the most common swings are back and forth between Liberal and Conservative candidates.That is if you only look at those that actually switched in an election not what random Canadians told pollsters they would do if they ever did switch.
In the 2015 election the Conservatives in BC and went from 45.5% to 30% in Ont they went from 44.4% to 35%. Drops of 15.5% and 9.6%. The NDP dropped from 32.5% to 25.9% in BC and from 25.6% to 16.6%. Drops of 6.6% and 9%. The Liberals went from 13.4% in BC to 35% and 25.3 to 44.5% in Ont. Gains of 21.6% in BC and 19.2%.
So to recap. In BC the Liberals gained 21.6% and the Conservatives lost 15.5% and the NDP lost 6.6%. In Ontario the Liberals gained 19.2% and the Conservaitves lost 9.6% and the NDP lost 9%.
I guess it shows that in BC about two thirds of voters that swing go between the two corporate parties. In Ontario it seems to be less pronounced.
Platform schmatform. Nobody believes politicians these days. Party platforms are great to use as garden fertilizer, but that's about it. I'm talking about starting by having a presence in these communities, along the lines of the Lethbridge Declaration that Niki Ashton proposed in her 2012 NDP leadership campaign. Guy Caron also understands the importance of courting rural voters.
Let's compare countries. In Canada, the left and the NDP has had almost no presence in the small-c conservative areas for at least a decade. In the US, Bernie Sanders went to deep red states to talk to people and listen to them about their concerns. Now in Canada, large chunks of the West and Ontario are safe Conservative seats, out of reach for anybody. In the US, the Democrats are becoming more competitive in red states like Arizona, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. So which of these 2 approaches do you think works?
I think one important difference between the US and Canada is that in the US the Democrats are the default party of the left while here in Canada federally the Liberals are the default party of the left. The Republicans are in control of government in the US and are failing in very many respects so naturally the Democrats are benefitting there by default. Here in Canada the Liberal government's failures are benefitting the Conservatives, the other default party in Canada. Unfortunately this is how our two-party FPTP system seems to be working in Canada at the federal level and how the two-party FPTP system works in the US.
What does FPTP have to do with the fact that the left routinely ignores small and rural communities where the Conservatives tend to dominate?
No more immigrants. Reconsider equal marriage. Support our troops.
That's where the parley goes pear shaped. It's easy to imagine a meeting of the minds if all you're going to talk about is how the elites are taking their munnee, but there's a lot more on people's minds than just economics.
Under FPTP, it's a waste of time and money to campaign in a riding the Conservatives are going to win by 50 points. Under PR, every vote counts (yes, give or take the details of the system), so there really is a point in the left appealing to small and rural communities as well as major cities.
Sanders was running for the Democratic nomination. Each state with a given population counts just as much as any other regardless of how the general election vote goes. In fact, as far as bang for the buck goes, campaigning in states where the Democrats are weak is more effective since there are fewer Democratic voters who have to be won over.
Regarding Democratic gains in those states cited, most of it is due to the increasing Hispanic population and the Republicans' abandonment of that constituency under Trump, a complete reversal from their strategy under the Bushes. There is no way the Conservatives or Liberals are ever going to stop courting minority groups, although the Conservatives are willing to write off some smaller ones such as blacks or First Nations.