Edmonton Election: How well do the candidates reflect the city's diversity?
CTV
CTV News examined candidates' websites and online presence in an effort to document how well women as well as racially diverse candidates are represented among candidates.
Candidates in Edmonton’s upcoming election are largely white, but women and visible minority candidates are more frequently found on the ballot compared to the recent federal election, CTV News analysis shows.
CTV News examined candidates' websites and online presence in an effort to document how well women as well as racially diverse candidates are represented among candidates.
“What we see is that the elected representatives do not reflect the composition of the population,” said MacEwan University political scientist Chaldeans Mensah.
“The good news is we've seen more people putting their names forward from the non-white segment of the candidate pool. We're beginning to see some progress there.”
White candidates make up a majority of about 65 per cent of all candidates running in mayoral, council and school trustee races later this month.
South Asian and Black candidates were the next most frequently found racial backgrounds at about 17 per cent and 10 per cent of all candidates, respectively.
Those numbers are significantly better than those found from last month’s federal election, where 82 per cent of those running in Edmonton-area ridings were white.
