Still sacrificial lambs? Yes! Minority groups in Canadian federal elections, 2015–2021

Abstract

This paper explores whether LGBTQ2S+, racial minorities, Indigenous and women candidates are more likely to be nominated in electoral districts in which they have a limited chance of being elected, that is to be “sacrificial lambs”. We examine the Canadian case since it is well-known for its liberal attitudes regarding diversity (Pew Research, 2020) which may, presumably, shelter candidates of minority groups from such discrimination in electoral politics. Our analysis mobilizes a dataset of candidates who ran for office in the 2015, 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections. We consider how partisanship, incumbency, and intersectionality impact the likelihood of minority candidates to be nominated in (non-) winnable electoral districts. Our study shows that women and LGBTQ2S+ candidates are particularly overrepresented in hard-to-win districts. In addition, minority candidates running for the two largest parties are more likely to be nominated in districts their party lost by a landslide at the previous election compared to minority candidates of other parties. Our study also confirms that incumbency is a significantly impediment to the election of minority candidates. Overall, minority groups are still sacrificial lambs in Canadian elections.