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MERRITT HERALD FREE
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2015 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
FROM RESERVE TO VOTING BOOTH The challenges on-reserve First Nations face in getting out the vote — and what some local bands are doing about it Michael Potestio THE MERRITT HERALD
Shackan reserve residents Jim and Betty-Jean Bergh feel they and others who live on this reserve are not getting proper representation in the upcoming election because while their address is affiliated to Merritt, their riding is not. The roughly 50 voter-eligible band members living on this reserve have connections to Merritt, but if they vote in the 42nd General Election, they will be casting a ballot to choose an MP in the Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon riding, which they have little affiliation with. “I want to vote in Merritt,” Betty-Jean said noting she does business there and her phone number is a local one. “Her people have been buried here for 5,000 years, how can [Elections Canada] say we don’t belong in the Nicola Valley?” Jim asked. Jim said he thinks there’s a lot of apathy for on-reserve voters because they feel there’s a lack of representation — the fact the members of the Shackan reserve are voting in a different riding than the one their address is affiliated with being one of them. “There’s a real lack of interest for voter participation, and I myself and Betty would like to see First Nations recognized, and also teach the youth that they have value, they have meaning in this
country and they have representation,” Bergh said. The Shackan reserve wasn’t included in the same riding as Merritt under the former Okanagan-Coquihalla riding, and continued to lay outside Merritt’s riding when the Federal Electoral Boundary Commission redefined the riding borders now in effect. The Shackan band sent a letter to Elections Canada requesting an amendment to the new boundary be made to have the Shackan reserve included in the redefined Central Okanagan-SimilkameenNicola riding, but this was after the process of redistribution had passed. Shackan Chief Percy Joe said the response he got from Elections Canada was that the election boundaries are based on population, which needs to be maintained. The Shackan band has a membership of about 120 people, and not all live on the reserve. “There’s no consideration taken in as to where you do business and where you would have more information [regarding candidates],” Joe said. He also said he’s heard complaints from his members that given their local address they receive flyers for candidates running in the Central OkanaganSimilkameen-Nicola riding they can’t vote in and nothing regarding the candidates they are voting for in the Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon riding.
This graph shows that the turnout trend on reserve closely follows the national trend. The similarities suggest that on-reserve electors are affected in a similar way by the same contextual factors, specific to each election. Elections Canada data
Oct. 19 will be the fifth time Canadians have gone to the polls in the last 11 years. While voter turnout nationally has only hovered at the 60 per cent mark in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011, on-reserve voting has consistently been 15 to 20 per cent lower. In 2011, the national voter turnout rate was 61.1 per cent and the on-reserve rate was 44.8 per cent. That election year B.C. had an average on-reserve turnout rate of 48.6 per cent, which was one of the highest in the country. The B.C. rate overall was about 60 per cent. B.C. also had the most onreserve polls with 607 that year.
Counting the city’s less fortunate David Dyck THE MERRITT HERALD
First Nations voter turnout on-reserve vs. national (2004-2011)
BY THE NUMBERS
COMMUNITY
In the Okanagan-Coquihalla riding where Nicola Valley residents voted in the last two elections, the voter turnout mirrored the provincial number at about 48 per cent. There were 34 on-reserve polls in the riding in 2008 and 36 in 2011. Of the five local bands, only the Lower Nicola band has a polling station on their reserve for this upcoming election. About 700 Lower Nicola band members live on-reserve and approximately 500 of them are eligible to vote. The Upper Nicola Band has about 300 voter eligible members living on the reserve.
See ‘Band chiefs’ Page 11
Today members of the ASK Wellness Society of Merritt and volunteers will be canvassing the community, looking for an accurate tally of the number of homeless people in Merritt. The count begins at 8:30 this morning and will go until 2:00 p.m. A hot meal will be provided for volunteers and anyone who wants to connect at 12 noon, at the Fireside Centre on Granite Ave. This is the sixth year the society has done the count. “What we do is we come in and provide them with support and resources, and educate them about our agency and other community agencies,” said Stacy Wormwell-Street, co-director of operations for ASK Wellness. The goal is to get them more stabilized within the community, she said. “The statistics that are calculated from the count are used to lobby local government,” she said. “We use them to help promote social change, and help create awareness around homelessness as an issue in the city of Merritt, and what we can do to pull together as a community to try and help solve homelessness.” Wormwell-Street said that last year they counted 23 individuals who were “absolutely homeless,” though there’s also a big problem in Merritt with what is known as hidden homelessness. “What this looks like are people couch surfing, bouncing around from home to home because they don’t have a permanent address for which they pay rent,” she said. “This is a huge issue.”
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