New research explores presence, experiences of Black Canadians in politics

Interesting study (similar studies could be conducted for other groups):

…Ultimately, the group’s best efforts identified about 380 Black Canadians who have run for or been elected to office, largely from the past two decades. Of those, 75 people ran federally, with former Progressive Conservative MP Lincoln Alexander’s 1968 election in Hamilton West, Ont., being the earliest such entry. But as the report highlights, Black Canadians have been involved in politics for more than 150 years, going back to Wilson Ruffin Abbott’s participation in local Toronto politics in the late 1840s and 1850s, and abolitionist and civil rights activist Abraham Doras Shadd’s election to Raleigh,Ont.’s town council in 1859.

“Part of the reason for focusing on compiling these lists and acknowledging who has run for office, and who has served is to help in that process of excavating that history and providing an archive of those contributions and those achievements to rewrite that historical record and to rewrite the narrative that Black Canadians haven’t had a long-standing and durable presence in Canadian politics,” said Tolley.
Still, Tolley stressed that the lists are not complete, and highlighted theironline call for people to submit information about individuals who may have been missed.

“That’s a really important part of the project because a lot of times in the country’s political history, Black Canadians really just don’t appear in those historical records,” she said.

Thirty-three Black Canadians who have run for or served in public office were interviewed for the project. On top of that, a survey was sent to 212 individuals across Canada, garnering 95 responses.

Survey respondents were split almost evenly by gender—with 52 per cent identifying as women,and 48 per cent as men—and 60 per cent had run for office within the past year. Of those surveyed, 45 per cent had been elected to office at some point.

The survey found a majority of respondents had run at the local level—for school boards, local or regional councils, or for mayor—while 19 per cent had run provincially, and 21 per cent federally. Local levels of government were also where a majority of respondents made their first run for office, with only 17 percent starting at the federal level.

Of the roughly 380 past candidates identified through research, a majority similarly ran or were elected at the local level, with 46 per cent of that poolhaving run for school boards or municipally, while 20 per cent ran federally.

Tolley said she suspects there’s an “element of accessibility” at play as local races don’t require the same “fundraising capacity and volunteer base that you might need to have at the federal and provincial level[s]”—two key hurdles highlighted through the survey. Tolley also noted that 52 percent of respondents cited a desire to address a policy problem as a factor that influenced them to run for office, and policy problems “might be … more evident” at the municipal level…

Source: New research explores presence, experiences of Black Canadians in politics