Ottawa Wellbeing Report – Democratic Engagement This is part of a series of reports that provide a snapshot of community wellbeing for Ottawa. Following the Canadian Index of Wellbeing framework, each report presents data from the eight domains of wellbeing. These domains are: Community Vitality, Democratic Engagement, Education, Environment, Healthy Populations, Leisure and Culture, Living Standards, and Time Use. This report presents data for the Democratic Engagement domain. Due to gaps in available data at the local level, data are presented on selected indicators within the eight domains of wellbeing. Furthermore, some of the indicators found in Ottawa reports differ from those in the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. In this report, the data are presented for the City of Ottawa, unless otherwise specified. Where possible, data for Ottawa are compared to those for Ontario and/or Canada.
Key Messages • • •
Voter turnout in Ottawa is declining for municipal, provincial, and federal elections. Of all three levels of government, the lowest voter turnout is found in municipal elections. In Ottawa, women are under-represented in local government, where only 25% of elected officials are female. Among Ottawa residents, overall satisfaction with the performance of their municipal government is moderate. Residents are almost three times more likely to be very dissatisfied than to be very satisfied with their municipal government.
The Democratic Engagement domain of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing provides a thematic approach to measuring democratic engagement. It describes engagement at the individual, government, and global levels. The indicators found in this domain encompass all three themes and they go beyond measuring electoral participation to include attitudes toward politics, satisfaction with democracy, gender equality in government, and Canada’s commitment to global development. This report presents selected indicators from the Democratic Engagement domain of the Canadian Index of Wellbeing for Ottawa (refer to Table A1 of the Appendix for a list of indicators). What is the current data telling us? Voter turnout Voter turnout is a traditional and common measure of individual engagement and a country’s democratic health (Prairie Wild Consulting Co. and Holden & Associates, 2010; Barnes and Virgint, 2010). High voter turnout is often desired as it is more likely to reflect the interests of the larger share of the population (Conference Board of Canada, 2014). On the other hand, low voter turnout has been viewed as a sign of dissatisfaction and indifference about the way the country is being governed (Conference Board of Canada, 2014). Groups of particular demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, such as the young, the poor, and those who are less educated, are more likely to be non1