OTTAWA — Tania Cameron lives in a Canadian electoral district where most Aboriginal reservations lack drinkable water. Its overcrowded schools and crumbling infrastructure offer a snapshot of social ills that pervade native life.

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“We also have a number of missing and murdered indigenous women,” she says. “A lot of families don’t know what ever happened to their loved one.”

But Kenora – her riding, or district, in north Ontario – also epitomizes a political awakening that swept the country in the run-up to Monday’s election.