ELECTION: Comparing Indigenous platforms in 2025 federal election – Prince George Daily News
April 11, 2025
I have been teaching as a post-secondary instructor for over a decade and as a result I have taught during four federal elections and four provincial elections: two in Alberta and two in British Columbia. Given the topics of the courses I teach – history and Indigenous studies – the election usually comes up in class. Heck, I have students in my class who have run for elected office and if you think they all ran for left wing parties I have a wonderful bridge to sell to you.
Usually, students want to talk about the history of political parties and/or how Indigenous peoples feel about them. The short answer is that there is no simple answer. Assuming that every candidate is being truthful about their claims to be Indigenous, every major political party have run Indigenous – First Nations, Métis, or Inuit – candidates in these elections. Here in northern British Columbia the most famous is arguably Ellis Ross, who is running for the Conservative Party in Skeena-Bulkley Valley. The same is usually true for the minor political parties, although this situation is not always apparent and less likely for those parties that run only a few candidates. It can also be hard to tell sometimes. For example, while Elections Canada lists Nancy Mercier, who is Mi’kmaq, as the People’s Party candidate for Madwaska-Restigouche, she does not appear on the People’s Party website as of the writing of this piece – 10 April 2024 – as a candidate despite having run in the previous two elections for them.
