The Causes of Voting and Turnout for the 2002 Aboriginal Treaty Negotiations Referendum in British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

Although indigenous peoples constitute one of the most socially, economically, and politically marginalized groups in the world, few quantitative social scientists have studied public attitudes toward this ethnicity in Canada or the world. We are not sure, for example, whether mass-level views toward First Nations are caused by the same factors that determine Canadians’ opinions toward immigrants or Visible Minorities in general. To help answer this question, the paper investigates why ordinary British Columbians decided 1. to vote in; and 2. to vote “yes” on the controversial 2002 Aboriginal Treaty Negotiations Referendum. I first set the Referendum in the electoral and negotiation dynamics of the time by relying on archival research and personal interviews with such key figures as Premier Gordon Campbell, Attorney General Geoff Plant, and leading First Nations Treaty Negotiators. The essay next examines the theoretical literature on attitudes toward ethnic minorities in the abstract, which suggests that support for the measure might have been rooted in economic self-interest (e.g., income, occupation, employment status, and region), identity politics (e.g., ethnic, religious, or gender identification), education, partisanship, or age. To evaluate these hypotheses, the paper examines data from the April 2002 BC Reid Express Poll as well as official census and voting results. Cross-tabulations of the Reid Poll and Gary King-method, R x C ecological analysis of the election statistics indicate that identity politics, regional self-interest, and education primarily motivated British Columbians’ responses to the 2002 Aboriginal Treaty Negotiations Referendum. Purely individual economic circumstances, on the other hand, do not seem to have played a role. More broadly, these findings suggest that the roots of non-indigenous Canadians’ views on First Nations are similar to the determinants of attitudes toward minorities in general.

Keywords: First Nations, indigenous peoples, Canada, British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, Geoff Plant, public opinion, Aboriginal Treaty Referendum