In this Lecture staged before the 2011 provincial election politics professor Shannon Sampert discusses negative ads and campaigning. Most of what she says is spot on.



There are, however, some issues when it comes to low voter turnout. True, some people (particularly those with middle incomes) tend to not vote as a sign of being okay with direction of Canada. But there are other groups of nonvoters who consistently don't turn out.

Take, for instance, aboriginal voters - who tend to vote at lower rates than the general population. While the data tends to be a bit thin, there's been waves of indigenous activism and internationally documented horrible living conditions in First Nations communities. This would seem to show that at least some aboriginal Canadians aren't satisfied with the direction of Canada, yet this fails to translate into ballot box activity.

Clearly, there's restless, non-complacent yet consistent non-voters out here that need to be mobilized.