There are a number of signs scattered along the suburban streets of the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, across the river from Montreal.
A few of them have messages that read “Every Child Matters” or “This is Mohawk Land.” Some feature the local language of Kanien’kéha.
But election campaign posters or signs are nowhere to be found in Kahnawake, even though a Quebec general election is only a few weeks away.
“We don’t want to participate or be involved in (the elections) in any way, nor do we want it to be right in our face,” said Mohawk Council of Kahnawake Grand Chief Cody Diabo.
If someone tried to put up a sign, they’re swiftly taken down, said Diabo.
Recently, a video of someone tearing down a sign of Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon that had been installed at the outskirts of Kahnawake made the rounds online. In the video, a man appears to use a sledgehammer to knock out the wooden stakes propping up the poster at the edge of the highway.
Diabo said that most people in the community view both provincial and federal elections as if they were taking place in a different country.
Numbers compiled over the past two decades reflect how Kahnawake and many other Indigenous communities in Quebec have largely turned away from participating in Quebec elections.
In May, the province’s electoral oversight agency, Élections Québec, published data showing the average voter turnout for provincial elections in Indigenous communities in Quebec was at about 19 per cent since 2007, compared to close to 68 per cent provincewide.
These rates vary from community to community.
In Wendake, a community in the Quebec City region, 1012 out of 1691 registered voters cast their ballots in 2022.
Turnout has been much lower in Akwesasne, where no one voted in 2022 even though the community had 1423 registered voters. Over the past two decades, only one person has voted in a Quebec election in the community, which is located in the southwestern part of the province, overlapping with Ontario and New York. The single vote was cast in the 2018 election.
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In Kahnawake in 2022, 20 out of 2313 registered voters cast their ballots in the provincial riding of Châteauguay. Overall, the voter turnout in Kahnawake has been under one per cent in every Quebec election since 2007, except for 2012, when there was a turnout of 1.87 per cent.
Despite the low turnout, the provincial agency isn’t campaigning to increase voter participation. Instead, it’s focusing on making sure that voting is accessible, spokesperson Julie St-Arnaud-Drolet said.
Part of those efforts include sending out trilingual documents with voting information in French, English and local languages to post office boxes in Inuit, Cree and Naskapi communities.
“We understand their history, and the goal is not necessarily to boost voter turnout, but rather to ensure that voting is accessible to those who wish to vote,” she said.
In Kahnawake, a number of community members approached by The Canadian Press seemed surprised when asked about the elections. They were quick to point out that they don’t vote on the provincial or federal levels.
Diabo explained that Kahnawake follows the principle of the Two Row Wampum, an agreement of mutual respect and non-interference with Quebec and Canada represented by a belt of parallel purple and white beads.
“We’re staying in our lane, and we expect the federal and provincial governments to stay in their lane. So that’s why we don’t participate in their governing system,” he said.
Ideally, he would like that principle to be applied to legislation as well, with the Quebec government staying out of the community’s affairs. But he knows the provincial government can make sweeping decisions that impact Kahnawake.
While Kahnawake is keeping its distance from provincial elections, some Indigenous politicians have embraced Quebec politics.
Alexis Wawanoloath is one of the few Indigenous people who were elected to represent ridings in Quebec’s national assembly.
Voters in the riding of Abitibi-Est riding elected Wawanoloath, who ran for the Parti Québécois, in 2007. He held that seat for a year, until the minority Liberal government triggered another election in 2008 and he lost his seat.
As he was campaigning to get elected, he received mixed responses from First Nations communities in his riding, with some of them showing support.
“For others, because of my position with a sovereigntist party, they saw it as a kind of betrayal. Others thought that just the fact that I was running, no matter the party, legitimized a system that shouldn’t be ours,” he said.
Once he was elected, he had more time to digest these messages.
“To be called a traitor and things like that, I found it hard. But to see that I could bring hope and be a spokesperson, it’s certain I felt driven by that mission,” he said.
Natural Resources Minister Kateri Champagne Jourdain, a member of the Innu nation, is seeking re-election in the north shore riding of Duplessis, where she grew up.
She said she understands those who choose not to participate in elections, but she believes Indigenous communities should make their voices heard by voting.
In Quebec, Indigenous people living on reserve got the right to vote in 1969, almost three decades after women got the right to vote in 1940, according to Élections Québec.
“Those rights were won through the sweat of struggle and advocacy — just like women’s right to vote, it was the same for Indigenous people. If we waged those battles, it was because it was important,” she said.
In the current campaign, party leaders have highlighted the need for communication with Indigenous communities.
“It’s up to us to pass on that passion for voting. I know that many Indigenous nations don’t fully identify with the Quebec political system, but it is up to politicians to encourage the exercise of that right to vote,” said Quebec liberal party leader Charles Milliard.
Québec Solidaire spokesperson Yssia Tormin said the party wants to decolonize the political system.
“In our view, First Nations and Inuit people participate little in elections because the other parties show no interest in them,” she wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.
For his part, St-Pierre Plamondon said he hopes to have a conversation with each nation to try to gauge their interest in the elections.
“I will make myself available for that, in which case maybe we will get higher participation. But some nations will say, ‘This is you. We are a separate nation and we’re not interested,’ in which case we have to respect that too,” he said.
