Kewatinook is a provincial electoral division in the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 province of Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

. Starting with the 2011 election

Manitoba general election, 2011

The 40th general election of Manitoba was held to elect Members of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. It took place on October 4, 2011, due to the new fixed-date election laws...

, the riding was renamed Kewatinook which means "from the north” in Cree.

It was created in 1916 from territories that were added to the province four years earlier, and has existed continuously since that time. It was originally named Rupertsland but its name was changed as part of the 2008 riding redistribution by the Manitoba Boundaries Commission that happens every few years.

Kewatinook is currently the largest riding in the province, a sprawling northern constituency which occupies most of the eastern half of Manitoba. It was a smaller constituency until 1989, when it gained a significant amount of territory from the former riding of Churchill

Churchill (provincial electoral district)

Churchill is a former provincial electoral division in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It was created by redistribution in 1956, and eliminated in 1999....

.

The current Kewatinook riding stretches from the Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 border in the southeast to the Nunavut

Nunavut

Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...

 border in the north; it is also bordered by Lac Du Bonnet to the south and Flin Flon, The Pas and Thompson to the west. Churchill, Manitoba

Churchill, Manitoba

Churchill is a town on the shore of Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada. It is most famous for the many polar bears that move toward the shore from inland in the autumn, leading to the nickname "Polar Bear Capital of the World" that has helped its growing tourism industry.-History:A variety of nomadic...

 is the most significant community in this wide region.

For logistical reasons, elections in Kewatinook before 1966 were usually deferred until a later date than the rest of the province.

Kewatinook's population in 2006 was 15,560. As of 1999, the average family income was $33,787 (the fourth-lowest in Manitoba), and the unemployment rate was 25%. Over 34% of the riding's population have less than a Grade 9 education, the highest such rate in the province. Government services account for 21% of the riding's industry, followed by education services at 17%.

Eighty-seven per cent of Kewatinook's residents are aboriginal, the highest percentage in the province. Over half the population list Cree

Cree language

Cree is an Algonquian language spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories and Alberta to Labrador, making it the aboriginal language with the highest number of speakers in Canada. It is also spoken in the U.S. state of Montana...

 as their mother tongue. As of 1999, there was only a 1% immigrant population.

The New Democratic Party

New Democratic Party of Manitoba

The New Democratic Party of Manitoba is a social-democratic political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is the provincial wing of the federal New Democratic Party, and is a successor to the Manitoba Co-operative Commonwealth Federation...

 has represented this riding since 1969, and it is considered extremely safe for the party. The current MLA is Eric Robinson, who was re-elected in 2003 with over 86% of the vote—the highest percentage in the province.

List of provincial representatives

Name	Party	Took Office	Left Office
John Morrison John Morrison (Manitoba politician) John Morrison was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1916 to 1922....	Independent	1916	1920
	Lib Manitoba Liberal Party The Manitoba Liberal Party is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late nineteenth-century, following the province's creation in 1870.-Origins and early development :...	1920	1922
Francis Black Francis Black Francis Mollison Black was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1922 to 1927, and was a cabinet minister in John Bracken's government from 1922 to 1925....	Prog Progressive Party of Manitoba The Progressive Party of Manitoba, Canada, was a political party that developed from the United Farmers of Manitoba, an agrarian movement that became politically active following World War I...	1922	1927
Herbert Beresford Herbert Beresford Herbert Grahame Beresford was a land surveyor and politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1927 to 1932....	Independent Progressive	1927	1932
Ewan McPherson Ewan McPherson Ewan Alexander McPherson was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Canadian House of Commons from 1926 to 1930...	Lib-Prog Manitoba Liberal Party The Manitoba Liberal Party is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late nineteenth-century, following the province's creation in 1870.-Origins and early development :...	1932	1936
Michael Rojeski Michael Rojeski Michael Rojeski was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1922 to 1927, as a member of the Manitoba Liberal Party....	Lib Manitoba Liberal Party The Manitoba Liberal Party is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late nineteenth-century, following the province's creation in 1870.-Origins and early development :... /Non-Coalition	1936	1941
Daniel Hamilton Daniel Hamilton Daniel Roy Hamilton was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as a Liberal-Progressive from 1941 to 1953....	Lib-Prog Manitoba Liberal Party The Manitoba Liberal Party is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late nineteenth-century, following the province's creation in 1870.-Origins and early development :...	1941	1953
Roy Brown Roy Brown (Manitoba politician) Francis Roy Brown was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as a Liberal-Progressive from 1953 to 1958.Brown was educated in Winnipeg...	Lib-Prog Manitoba Liberal Party The Manitoba Liberal Party is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late nineteenth-century, following the province's creation in 1870.-Origins and early development :...	1953	1958
Joseph Jeannotte Joseph Jeannotte Joseph Jeannotte was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1958 to 1969....	PC Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba The Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba is the only right wing political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is also the official opposition party in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.-Origins and early years:...	1958	1969
Jean Allard Jean René Allard Jean René Allard is a former politician in Manitoba, Canada. He was elected to the Manitoba legislature in 1969 as a New Democrat, but subsequently left to sit as an Independent MLA....	NDP New Democratic Party of Manitoba The New Democratic Party of Manitoba is a social-democratic political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is the provincial wing of the federal New Democratic Party, and is a successor to the Manitoba Co-operative Commonwealth Federation...	1969	1972
	Independent	1972	1973
Harvey Bostrom Harvey Bostrom Harvey Bostrom is a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He was a New Democratic member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1973 to 1981....	NDP New Democratic Party of Manitoba The New Democratic Party of Manitoba is a social-democratic political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is the provincial wing of the federal New Democratic Party, and is a successor to the Manitoba Co-operative Commonwealth Federation...	1973	1981
Elijah Harper Elijah Harper Elijah Harper is an Aboriginal Cree Canadian politician and band chief. He was a key player in the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord, an attempt at Canadian constitutional reform.- Early life :...	NDP New Democratic Party of Manitoba The New Democratic Party of Manitoba is a social-democratic political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is the provincial wing of the federal New Democratic Party, and is a successor to the Manitoba Co-operative Commonwealth Federation...	1981	1992
Eric Robinson	NDP New Democratic Party of Manitoba The New Democratic Party of Manitoba is a social-democratic political party in Manitoba, Canada. It is the provincial wing of the federal New Democratic Party, and is a successor to the Manitoba Co-operative Commonwealth Federation...	1993	present

Electoral results

Previous boundaries