The Weekly

Election 2019 - A Twitter Analysis on Indigenous Matters

[Sept. Oct. 4th - Oct. 11th]

By: Jean-François Savard, Mathieu Landriault et Emmanuel Saël

Supported by the Digital Ecosystem Research Challenge

At glance

In our weekly series on the 2019 federal election, we present this fourth Weekly, which deepens the analysis of Idnigenous issues based on tweets published by candidates of the various political parties competing. Compared to the third week, we find no change in the most popular words and most popular hashtags in French and English. Indeed, the word enfants in French and communities in English continue to be the most popular. As for the most popular hashtags, as has been the case since the beginning of the campaign, polcan and elxn43 in French and English respectively remain popular.

Most popular words: enfants communities

Most popular hashtags: polcan elxn43

Number of Tweets

The New Democratic Party (NDP) maintains leadership in terms of the number of tweets published by its candidates on Indigenous issues and in a significant way compared to other parties. The graphic below shows that the NDP alone has published more tweets than all the other parties combined. The Green Party is dislodging the Liberal Party that finished second last week in the number of tweets. As for the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois, the trend continues. Despite the fact that the Conservatives have the largest number of candidates registered and who has a Twitter account, paradoxically they pay little attention to Indigenous issues.

With regard to the frequency of tweets per political party and per day, two dates received particular attention. First, on October 5, there was a significant increase in the number of tweets for the NDP and the Green Party. It should be noted that on October 5, the NDP leader was in Grassy Narrows to present his plan for indigenous communities. The Green Party had also presented its promises regarding Indigenous people. Then, on October 8, there was a significant increase in the number of tweets for the NDP, the Liberal Party and the Green Party. We must say that this is the day after the only day of the debate in English and Indigenous issues were among the themes selected for this debate. In general, it should be noted that since the beginning of the campaign there has been an increase in the number of tweets the day after the debate. It should also be noted that there is a tendency for candidates to follow the position adopted by their leaders in the media.

The frequency of tweets per day corroborates the results observed in the higher number of tweets per party per day. October 8, which was the day after the day of the debate, is the most prolific in terms of the number of tweets from candidates. Also on October 8, Justin Trudeau’s visit to the North and the discussions held on Inuit issues should be highlighted. October 5, as we have already pointed out, also refers to the date on which the NDP and the Green Party presented their plan for indigenous communities, which would explain the peak observed that day.

Number of Tweets by Province

As we have noted since the beginning of the election campaign, Ontario and British Columbia are the provinces with the highest number of tweets regarding Indigenous issues. The explanations we proposed at the beginning of the campaign, which seem to be gradually being confirmed, concern the fact that the majority of NDP candidates are found in these two provinces, and the fact that these provinces have the highest proportion of Indigenous people.

Number of Tweets by Riding

For the ridings, the trend is consistent with what has been observed since the beginning of the campaign. Ridings such as Timmins-James Bay in Ontario continue to be among those with the highest number of tweets published by candidates. The map below shows that this phenomenon is concentrated in northern ridings and one would also tend to argue that these are the ridings for which the proportion of the Indigenous population is the highest. However, we also note that in several urban ridings, which we mentioned in the last Weekly, there is a high concentration of publications on Indigenous issues. As we mentioned last week, none of our hypotheses attempting to explain this phenomenon could be confirmed. We must therefore wait until the end of the campaign to produce more detailed analyses, which will allow us to understand this dual northern and urban concentration.

Content analysis

English Dendrogram

The term indigenous keeps a prominent place in English tweets and continues to be associated with terms such as first nations and issues related to water, communities and reconciliation. All this therefore reflects a fairly stable trend. Looking at the figure below, there are clear associations between water and communities as well as between children, people, rights and court, which shows how much attention has been paid over the past few weeks through tweets to the need for reconciliation, particularly with regard to the harms suffered by indigenous communities in the past. With regard to the water theme that is coming back this week, it is worth noting the NDP leader’s visit to Grassy Narrows on October 5 and the discussions around the water issues facing the community. This visit could be a trigger for the place of this theme.

French Dendrogram

In French compared to the tweets of the third week, there are some changes. First, we see in the first set of associations that are established between the terms voter and anticipation. It should be noted that throughout this week, there has been a great mobilization through the media to encourage citizens to vote early. This may therefore explain the first associations observed. Between crise and climatique, we see an association in the second set of the diagram below. This association somehow corroborates the correlations observed last week. At the right end of the diagram, there is an association between enfants, gouvernement and réconciliation for example, which to some extent reflects elements from the English tweets. Overall, the theme of reconciliation with indigenous communities remains central to discussions this week, confirming the findings made above regarding respect for indigenous rights and the use of the courts.

Correlation Analysis

Through this week’s tweets, we can identify two main themes that concern reconciliation and indigenous rights in particular. In the second major theme, the focus is on the crisis and climate change. These elements broadly confirm the observations and analyses made previously in the other sections. In addition to these two major groups, we must also highlight the interest in the water issue in the riding of Grassy Narrows, which was highlighted during the visit of the NDP leader. Engagement in the development of Indigenous communities is one of the themes that also attracts attention, as can be seen in the graph below. Compared to other weeks, several associations remain very stable, as evidenced by the relationships between reconciliation, government, communities, children, water and rights, as well as between crisis and climate change. So as the weeks go by, we really see several main themes around Indigenous issues crystallize.