First Nations voters care about jobs, housing

‘POLLY’ REVEALS

For the rest of Election 44, the National Post will be sharing insights from Polly, an artificial intelligence engine developed at the University of Ottawa that was the only pollster to correctly predict the results of the 2019 election.

Unlike typical polls, Polly gauges public opinion through constant computer analysis of public social media posts: If you have ever posted something political to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you’re probably part of Polly’s data set. Today, a look at how First Nations Canadians are approaching Election 44.

Polly has identified a data set of roughly 1,500 First Nations social media users, meaning that the user has at one point explicitly posted about their Indian status or their membership in a First Nation.

There are more than a dozen other demographics identified by Polly, including teachers, journalists, political staffers, parents and even Canadians hesitant to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Across virtually all those other categories, the No. 1, most posted about issue during Election 44 was the economy. But among First Nations, the economy took a distant second place to posts about racism. Of those posts, unsurprisingly, 60 per cent of them employed “negative” language.

First Nations were also disproportionately likely to post about taxing the Catholic Church.

This issue came up over the summer following the discovery of unmarked graves believed to contain the bodies of children who died at Catholic-run Indian Residential Schools. Of First Nations posts on the topic, 46 per cent appeared to endorse the idea.

That’s higher even than “activists,” where the rate of positive posts was 35 per cent.

Still, the “job market” and “cost of living” remained in the top 10 for First Nation social media posts, as they did for most other Canadian demographics.

However, First Nations broke with the mainstream on any number of issues typically considered progressive.

Not a single First Nations social media post about gun control was positive, and 62 per cent were explicitly negative.

First Nations were also decidedly mixed on the issue of universal basic income. Only 41 per cent posted about it positively, against 37 per cent who saw it negatively.

Meanwhile, there were two main categories in which there was almost blowout support among First Nations: Housing programs and pharmacare.

Another popular subject on First Nations social media? Indigenous reconciliation. This issue didn’t come close to the top 10 for any other Canadian demographic, but was No. 3 among First Nations.