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Seeking effective representation

Efforts to include Mi’kmaw in provincial government falls short

ARDELLE REYNOLDS INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS REPORTER ardelle.reynolds@cbpost.com @Cbpost_ardelle

SYDNEY — A report by the independent body responsible for drawing up fair and inclusive electoral districts for the Nova Scotia provincial election concedes it failed to consult or consider First Nations communities.

In 2019, the electoral boundaries commission, which reviews the boundaries at least every 10 years, recommended the return of four “exceptional electoral districts” — Clare, Argyle, Richmond and Preston — to encourage more participation from Acadians and African Nova Scotians, who were identified, along with the Mi’kmaw, as distinct, under-represented communities typically having lower participation rates than the general population.

The four “protected” seats were first created in 1992 after the Supreme Court ruled citizens are entitled to “effective representation”

— in other words, to have a voice in government deliberations — under the Constitution.

At that time, the government also amended the House of Assembly Act with the intention of adding a seat for Mi’kmaw representation, but that never happened.

REPRESENTATION KEY TO ENGAGEMENT

“You’ll never see a good turnout unless we have representation from our people,”

Eskasoni First Nation Chief Leroy Denny said.

His community shares the typically low voter participation rates of First Nation communities across the province, but Denny pointed out half of eligible voters participated when John F. Toney, now a councillor in Eskasoni, ran unsuccessfully for the NDP provincially in 2013 in the riding of Victoria-the Lakes. Wagmatcook First Nation, also in that riding, had the same high participation rate that year.

“When we have representation, we come out (to vote),” he said.

Denny expects to see high voting rates for this election because Nadine Bernard, who grew up in We’koqma’q First Nation and is a band member of Eskasoni, is running for MLA in Victoria-the Lakes. A win would make her the first Mi’kmaw representative in the provincial government.

NO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN N.S., MI’KMAW

Sen. Dan Christmas from Membertou First Nation says the lack of representation in the House of Assembly has come from a general lack of interest in provincial politics by the Mi’kmaw, who are legislated by the federal government under the Indian Act for the most part.

“The province, up until recently, has not had a real relationship with First Nations communities,” he said.

Christmas was involved in the process to amend the House of Assembly Act in 1992 to establish a seat in the legislature for Mi’kmaw representation. That amendment stated that until the seat was filled, the premier was obligated to consult with Mi’kmaw leadership at least once a year and report back to the House, something Premier Stephen Mcneil admitted wasn’t done during his tenure.

The lack of interest in Mi’kmaw representation in the government is mutual, he said.

“The Mi’kmaw are not pounding the premier’s door,” he said.

Patti Doyle-bedwell, a Mi’kmaw lawyer and activist on equity and human rights issues who teaches Native Studies at Dalhousie University, agrees that many Mi’kmaw people don’t feel included in provincial politics, but she sees it more as a systemic failure.

“We’re scattered all over the place, five communities in Cape Breton and eight on the mainland, and they’re all part of different ridings, so when an election comes up, it feels like our votes are not going to count and we’re not going to have anyone there to represent me and my issues,” she said.

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO HAVE A VOICE

Electoral districts are required to stay within 25 per cent above or below the average number of voters per district — the total number of voters in the province divided by the number of districts.

Exceptional election districts are allowed to have a smaller number of voters to create opportunities for “distinct communities” to elect an MLA to represent them, creating more diversity in the legislature.

To that end, the districts of Clare, Richmond and Argyle — representing Acadians — and Preston — representing African Nova Scotians — existed for 20 years, until they were scrapped by the NDP government in 2012.

The Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-écosse responded by suing the province, and in 2017 the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal agreed that eliminating the seats limited or denied the constitutional rights of Acadian and African Nova Scotians to be represented, which was the basis for the 2019 electoral district commission’s recommendation to reinstate the seats.

NO MI’KMAW CONSULTATION

Prior to the release of its report, the commission held public consultations in 20 communities, including Clare, Preston, Argyle and Chéticamp. There were no First Nations communities included.

Nine people were appointed to the electoral boundaries commission, including Angela Simmonds, a lawyer from Preston who is now running for the Liberals in the Preston riding re-established at the recommendation of the commission, Paul Gaudet from Saulnierville, an Acadian community in the newly re-established Clare district, and Léonard Lefort from Chéticamp, another Acadian community lobbying for an exceptional electoral district. There was no Mi’kmaw representation on the commission.

To justify the return of the four exceptional districts, the commission adopted the justification for the same from the 2012 commission’s interim report: “Like the Mi’kmaq people, the Acadian and African Nova Scotian communities have a particular cultural uniqueness and territorial basis in Nova Scotia that supports the argument for retaining a form of ‘special status’ ... (following) from the fact that they constitute minority cultural communities

that are indigenous to Nova Scotia, and further can be said to have fairly welldefined territorial ‘homelands’ in this province that have been continuously occupied for hundreds of years. Their distinctiveness derives from ... their unique indigenous cultures that have developed over centuries of relative isolation as coherent communities (due to remote rural locale and/or social exclusion.”

The same report also states, “We concede that our consultation process with the Mi’kmaw nation was not robust ... We suggest that future select committees consult with the Mi’kmaw nation prior to the formation of electoral boundaries commissions.”

OUTREACH INITIATIVE

Earlier this week, Elections Nova Scotia announced it would renew an initiative from the 2017 provincial election to engage African Nova Scotian, Acadian and Mi’kmaq electors through community outreach and by providing election material and public communication in French.

Just under 30,000 Nova Scotians, three per cent of the population, identify French as their first language and 10 per cent can speak both French and English. In Argyle, 54 per cent of residents speak French, while 70 per cent of people living in Clare speak French.

There is no language component to the outreach initiative for Mi’kmaq communities. While there is a low population of Mi’kmaw language speakers in Nova Scotia at 5,645, some communities have similar language profiles to the Acadian communities, such as Eskasoni with 72 per cent identifying Mi’kmaw as their first language.

Elections Nova Scotia does not track the ethnicity of voters, but data shows a declining trend in voter participation in First Nations communities in Cape Breton greater than the decline in the general population in Nova Scotia, which went from 58 per cent in 2009 to 53.5 per cent in 2017.

Looking at voting at onreserve polling stations in Cape Breton, the average of the five First Nations communities was 28 per cent in 2017. Potlotek and Membertou led participation at 32 per cent, down from 39 per cent and 37 per cent respectively in the 2013 election, while Eskasoni was at the bottom at 17 per cent, down from 46 per cent in 2013, in contrast to Elections Nova Scotia’s claim that its outreach project was a success.

MEANINGFUL CHANGE

Doyle-bedwell sees the outreach as a positive step but said there won’t be any real change in voter turnout until meaningful steps are taken by the government to meet its constitutional obligation to represent the Mi’kmaw in the legislature.

She proposes three seats for Mi’kmaw representation in the province — one in Cape Breton and two on the mainland — voted on by electoral districts made up of the 13 First Nations communities.

“If you think about the process now, if you were actually elected as an individual, as the Mi’kmaw representative, that person wouldn’t necessarily be empowered by a party and outside of that system, it makes it very hard to get your voice heard. But with three seats, you would actually have a stronger voice in government and I think that would appeal to people.”

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2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

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