Crees and Inuit favoured the Liberals 10-to-1 over the Bloc Québécois in the Nov. 27 election, according to federal voting records.
The Cree vote was even more one-sided, favouring Liberal MP Guy St-Julien by a whopping 18-to-1 margin.
The numbers were decisive in putting St-Julien over the top and into a new term as the representative of the sprawling Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik riding.
Crees gave St-Julien 2,026 votes, while the Inuit parked another 2,074 in his column –for a total of 4,100.
That was more than enough to help St-Julien retake the seat.
In total, he got 18,198 votes in the riding, for a comfortable 2,631 -vote margin over second-place François Lemieux of the Bloc.
The Bloc got only 114 votes in the Cree communities. Eighty-five percent of Cree-community votes went to St-Julien, compared to just 4.8 percent to the Bloc.
The Cree voting muscle was far from being fully flexed in the election.
Cree voter turnout was just 35 percent, with 2,379 ballots cast out of 6,792 eligible voters.
The Inuit turnout was 56.4 percent, matching the riding average of 56.7 percent.
Across Canada, there was a record low turnout of 62.8 percent.
Other election results:
• St-Julien got 22.5 percent of his 18,198 votes in the Cree and Inuit communities. The Bloc got only 2.5 percent of its vote in those communities.
• The other major parties barely registered in the Cree vote1; with 3.5 percent for the Alliance, 3 percent to the NDP and . the 2.3 percent to the Conservatives.
• Cree support for the Bloc ranged from a high of 8 percent of the vote in Nemaska to a low of 3.7 percent in Wemindji.
• Cree voter turnout ranged from a low of 20 percent in Whapmagoostui to 31 percent in Chisasibi, 36 percent in Mistissini and a high of 47 percent in Wemindji and Waskaganish.
• The percentage of spoiled ballots ranged from 8 percent in Wemindji to 0 percent in Nemaska.
