Indigenous Politics (IndigPoli) is a political blog that shares information and promotes Indigenous involvement in politics through this blog and social media. . This includes creating awareness of Indigenous candidates in Federal, Provincial, local and First Nations, Métis and Inuit elections. We also provide information and statistics on Indigenous participation in elections, when we have the data.
Saturday, June 14, 2025
12 Indigenous Members of Parliament (MPs) Elected or Re-Elected in 2025, on April 28th, 2025, as a result of the 45th General Election. #indigmps
Sunday, June 8, 2025
House of Commons Standing on Indigenous and Northern Affairs (INAN) - First Session of the 35th Parliament (2025)
The Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs (INAN) reviews, examines and reports on issues affecting First Nations, Inuit, Métis peoples and northerners.
Each party chooses who will be on the various House of Commons Standing Committees. It usually includes MPs who have experience and interest in specific committees. Ministers don't usually sit on House Committees, but their Parliamentary Secretaries do. For the opposition parties, the shadow ministers/critics sit on the respective committee for their assigned portfolio.
This is true for INAN, however, some MPs who don't have specific, or who have unrelated portfolio assignments will sit on this committee for other reasons. Such as previous work, volunteer and education experience related to Indigenous communities and peoples. Or, you will note below, some MPs who have a large number of Indigenous constituents in their electoral districts will ask to be or will just be placed on the INAN committee by their party leadership.
Unfortunately for the NDP only elected seven MPs, they lost official party status (need to have 12 MPs), which prevents them from sitting on most of the House of Commons committees.
These spots are coveted because each member gets a vote, which makes them influential. Committees have the power to fast-track legislation, slow it down to a crawl, and call witnesses (such as Ministers, department staff and other external citizens and subject matter experts) to attend a committee and take questions from committee members on specific bills and legislation.
For the first session of the 35th Parliament, there are 5 Liberal MPs, four Conservative MPs and one Bloc Québécois MP. BQ MP Sébastien Lemire plays an important role as a potential kingmaker on the INAN Committee.
Below, I break down the background information of INAN Committee members:
FOR THE LIBERAL MPs
Liberal Mi'kmaq MP Jaime Battiste is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services with 10.9% Indigenous voters in Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish, NS. This is his second re-election, and he has noted the support of several Mi'kmaq communities in his continued success. Ginette Lavack is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Services, where 17% of the voters are Indigenous in her St. Boniface-St.Vital, MB electoral district. Brendan Hanley is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Northern and Arctic Affairs. He is also the MP for Yukon, which has 22.1% Indigenous voters. Finally, MP Phillip Earle has 42% Indigenous voters in his Labrador electoral district, and Sault St. Marie-Algoma MP Terry Sheenan has 12.9% Indigenous voters in his electoral district.
FOR THE CONSERVATIVE MPs
Eric Meillo is the Conservative MP for Kenora-Kiiwetinoong, which has 40.4% Indigenous voters in his electoral district. He is also the CPC Shadow Minister* for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario. Former Enoch Chief Billy Morin and Conservative MP for Edmonton Northwest is the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Services. Haliburton-Kawartha Conservative MP Jamie Schmale is Shadow Minister for Crown-Indigenous Relations. Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies Conservative MP Bob Zimmer is the CPC Shadow Minister for Arctic Affairs & Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, and has 15% Indigenous voters in his electoral district.
*Shadow Minister is a term often used by the Official Opposition in place of Critic.
THE BLOC MP
Sébastien Lemire is the Bloc Québécois MP for Abitibi—Témiscamingue which has an Indigenous voter population of 15%. Lemire is Bloc Québécois Spokesperson (aka Critic) for Indigenous Relations and Northern Development.
COMMITTEE CHAIR - On Wednesday, June 18th, the INAN Committee will elect a Chair and two Vice-Chairs.
MEETINGS - https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/INAN/Meetings
#INAN #StandingCommitteeonIndigenousandNorthernAffairs #HouseofCommons
#indigpoli #indigmps #firstnation #metis #inuit #35thparl #indigpoli #indigenous
Members
Jaime BattisteLiberal
Philip EarleLiberal
Brendan HanleyLiberal
Ginette LavackLiberal
Sébastien LemireBloc Québécois
Eric MelilloConservative
Billy MorinConservative
Jamie SchmaleConservative
Terry SheehanLiberal
Bob ZimmerConservative
Friday, May 9, 2025
Power of the Indigenous Vote in 2025
Saturday, April 26, 2025
BATTLE FOR THE NORTH: Political Parties Duke it out to Represent the massive Northern Canadian Ridings
April 26, 2024
Are you ready for the Battle of the North? I am not talking about Game of Thrones, it's Canada's northern ridings, and different banners are vying to represent them.
Do you ever look at a political map after an election, or maps designed by pollsters/aggregators to show what Canada could look like after the 45th (2025) Canadian General Election?
As you look to the territories and northern ridings in the provinces, large chunks are represented by the Liberals, NDP and Conservative Party for the most part. Just looking at the map, you might think these parties have won a ton of ridings.
Then you find out that many of these large chunks are individual ridings. Particularly in Nunavut, NWT, Yukon, Quebec, Northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as well as Labrador. British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario have a few more northern ridings, but they are pretty large too. Some northern ridings are larger than European countries.
Another common feature in these northern ridings is that they have large Indigenous populations. Take the Denethé-Missinippi-Churchill riding in northern Saskatchewan, it almost takes up half of the province. This will be an interesting battle as all three major parties have Indigenous candidates. The riding has no incumbent, so it will be one to watch on election night. They include Buckley Belanger for the Liberals, Jim Lemaigre for the Conservative Party and Doug Racine for the NDP. Before his federal run, Buckley Belanger was an Sask NDP MLA in his home province for quite a few terms before running federally for the Liberal Party in this riding. It appears, Buckley and Doug had a few federals and now federal races in the past. Doug Racine is a Red River Métis. he has a diverse background from serving in the military to creating a law firm with 5 other lawyers. Jim Lemaigre is another former Saskatchewan legislator; he was an MLA for the Saskatchewan Party. All experienced leaders and politicians, this will make for an interesting race.
Nunavut is similar, except that NDP MP Lori Idlout isthe incumbent. She is a strong performer in the House of Commons, a strong advocate for Indigenous people and Northerners. If we follow current polls, it will be a challenge to keep it orange. Nunavut is sometimes seen as a bellwether riding changing with the government. Lori won the riding in a by-election after Mumilaaq Qaqqaq stepped down in 2021. Before that, it was held by Liberal Hunter Tootoo, and before that, it was held by Conservative Leona Aglukkaq - both Cabinet Ministers in their respective governments.
Another interesting race, the northern Manitoba riding Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, is the rematch between Indigenous candidate Rebecca Chartrand and longtime NDP candidate Niki Ashton, who has been the MP since 2008, but Pierre Poilievre has her beat by one term. It will be interesting to see if she gets any of the good energy created by NDP Wab Kinew's win and flipping the province to an NDP government. In a CBC article, it was noted that Premier Wab Kinew didn't endorse federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.
In 2015, Ashton and Chartrand went head-to-head to win the riding; Niki Ashton beat Rebecca Chartrand by 912 votes. Poll aggregator 338Canada currently has the race as a toss-up between the LPC and NDP. If the NDP lose seats as widely predicted, will Ashton be a casualty? Rebecca has a solid background in working with Northerners and Indigenous people, which helps her connect with many Manitobans. She has a diverse Indigenous background, which includes Anishinaabe, Inninew, Dakota, and Métis, which is a reflection of the diversity of the riding.
This will be an interesting race to watch! It once took roughly two weeks before they counted all the ballots, with reports of electoral stations running out of ballots. It can take a while to declare a winner, so we may not find out until the day after.
Notably, the famous First Nation leader, Elijah Harper won for the Liberals in 1993.
--- MORE TO COME ON THIS ARTICLE, THIS RACE AND OTHER INTERESTING NORTHERN BATTLES, I AM WATCHING CLOSELY ---
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Indigenous Politics: 2025 Federal Election Coverage #indigpoli
Indigenous Politics: 2025 Federal Election Coverage
(April 2024, Treaty 7 Territory) I do my best to cover every federal election from an Indigenous point of view. I am pleased to do my best to cover this short but lively election. Politicos always say this is the most important election. However, from my perspective, this is actually the most important election in a generation. Dealing with global turbulence brought on by the second term of President Donald Trump to issues at home from inflation, cost of living and housing, to the needs of First Nations and Indigenous people from Coast-to-Coast-to-Coast, many important matters impact our people.
I am partisan in my own beliefs, but when it comes to party Leaders and party platforms, statements and policy announcements to looking at the ridings (electoral districts) that have the largest Indigenous populations, I try my best to cover it all. For now, I will cover known Indigenous candidates from each party, what the riding looks like in terms of an Indigenous (First Nation, Inuit & Métis) population and other related information in the 338 electoral districts.
I will do my best to share more information about each Indigenous candidate, but it will take a while. Right now, I am keeping up with finding the candidates (with special thanks to all those individuals and organizations who provided tips).
- 13 LPC | 6 CPC | 14 NDP | 1 BLOC | 2 GPC
- 21 First Nations I 4 Inuit | 12 Métis
- 7 Incumbents (MPs running for re-election)
I got an e-mail from CTV yesterday wanting to interview me on my blog, a producer saw my list on x/twitter and reached out to me with the request for an interview. So, I agreed to get up super early for a morning show segment.
- Former Enoch Chief Billy Morin running in Edmonton Northwest. Edmonton Northwest was created as a result of the 2023 redistribution, the results from the ridings from the last election were transposed into this newly recreated Edmonton Northwest electoral district. As a result, the Conservatives would take 19,045 votes or 43.10% of the vote. The following party, the NDP, would have taken 12,215 votes or 27.63% of the votes. This means it would have been a Conservative win under the current riding distribution. I know this is technical, but I am attempting to share the path to victory for candidates. Like the 2025 Conservative candidate Billy Morin. Currently (today), 338Canada has the riding as a toss-up between the Conservatives and Liberals. (04/14/2025)
- The second Alberta candidate I talked about was Blake Desjarlais, who is the incumbent for the riding. He was the first two-spirit person elected to the House of Commons in the 2021 Federal Election for Edmonton Griestbach. Desjarlais is Cree-Métis from Firshing Lake Métis Settlement just east of Edmonton. He beat two-term Conservative MP Kerry Diotte by taking 40.5% of the vote in 2021. Smart Voting currently has the riding as a toss-up between the NDP and the Conservatives. Blake performed well in the House of Commons, his high profile and incumbency factor may help him maintain his seat.
- The third Alberta candidate I talked about was the NDP's Katherine Swampy, who is running in a small-town rural split riding of Leduc-Wetaskiwin. Swampy is a former band councillor of the Samson Cree First Nation, which is connected to Esminsken, Montana and Louis Bull First Nations. There are also several Métis people living near and around Pigeon Lake. The provincial riding of Maskwacis-Wetaskiwin, which covers a portion of the federal riding, has the Alberta NDP at 6,795 or 41.51% and winning the riding under the provincial redistribution process. If Katherine can get the Indigenous vote out, along with building a coalition of new voters like first-time voters and gen-z, she could win the riding, but it will be a more challenging attempt to change some hard C conservative voters over to federal NDP.
- 13 LPC | 6 CPC | 14 NDP | 1 BLOC | 2 GPC
- 21 First Nations I 4 Inuit | 12 Métis
- 7 Incumbents (MPs running for re-election)
Grand Chief Mandy Gull-Masty was the first female Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) in the James Bay Region of Quebec. Her home community is Waswanipi. Chief Mandy has served her home community as well as the Grand Council of Cree in several roles. Before her roles with the Cree government, she was a successful entrepreneur and businesswoman. Mandy successfully pursued an educational path that included a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Sciences and another in Public Affairs and Policy Studies from Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs.
She is running in the Northern Quebec riding of Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou which has several Cree communities, further north is the Inuit homeland of Nunavik where several towns and villages that Inuit people call home. NDP MP Romeo Saganash was the MP for the riding for two terms.
Blake Desjarlais is Cree-Métis from Fishing Lake Metis Settlement in Alberta. He is the first Two-Spirit person ever elected to the House of Commons as per current information.
Blake Desjarlais is the incumbent Member of Parliament for Edmonton Griesbach, he flipped the riding from Conservative to NDP taking 40.5% of the vote in 2021.
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MORE INFORMATION AND ANALYSIS TO COME