Statistics Canada
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National Aboriginal Day... by the numbers
June 21, 2005
National Aboriginal Day has been designated by the federal government
as a special day to celebrate the unique heritage, cultures and contributions
of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people in
Canada. For
more information on this event, visit the NAD official Web site, hosted
by Indian
and Northern Affairs Canada.
3.3% - proportion of Canadian population who identified themselves as Aboriginal on the 2001 Census. That's 976,305 people. Of those, 62% were North American Indian, about 30% Métis, and 5% Inuit.
- The provinces with the largest Aboriginal populations are Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
- The 22,720 Aboriginal people in Nunavut represented 85% of the territory's total population, the highest concentration in the country.
- Aboriginal people represented more than one-half (51%) of the population of the Northwest Territories, and almost one-quarter (23%) of the population of the Yukon.
- Nearly seven in 10 Aboriginal people live off-reserve, according to 2001 Census. Of those, almost a third live in large cities. Nearly 30% live on reserves (data adjusted for incompletely enumerated reserves in 2001).
Note: The Aboriginal population comprises those persons who reported identifying with at least one Aboriginal group, that is, North American Indian, Métis or Inuit, and/or who reported being a Treaty Indian or a Registered Indian, as defined by the Indian Act of Canada, and/or who reported being a member of an Indian Band or First Nation.
North American Indians
One-fifth of people who identified themselves as North American Indians lived in Ontario in 2001. Less than half lived on a reserve.
Winnipeg had the largest North American Indian population among Census Metropolitan Areas, with 22,955. It was followed in descending order by Vancouver (22,700), Edmonton (18,260), Toronto (13,785) and Saskatoon (11,290).
Métis
292,310 - number of people in Canada who identified themselves as Métis on the 2001 Census.
23% - proportion of Métis population that lives in Alberta, highest among the provinces. Another 19% of the Métis population is in Manitoba, and 17% in Ontario.
Inuit
45,070 - number of people in Canada who identified themselves as Inuit in Census 2001.
One half - proportion of Canada's Inuit who live in Nunavut. Quebec was a distant second with 21% of the total Inuit population. They were followed by Newfoundland and Labrador with 10% of the Inuit population, and the Northwest Territories, with about 9%.
Youthful nations
Aboriginal people are demographically the youngest population group in the country and the fastest growing.
23.5 - median age of North American Indian population in 2001. That's compared to a median age of 37.7 for the non-Aboriginal population.
27 - median age of the Métis population in 2001, nearly 11 years younger than that of the non-Aboriginal population. Three in 10 Métis were children aged 14 and under.
20 - median age of the Inuit population in 2001, the youngest among Aboriginal groups, except for the North American population in Saskatchewan, where it was 18.4. Four in 10 Inuit were children aged 14 and under.
Languages
The 2001 Census showed some evidence of language revitalization. While 20% of Aboriginal people said they had an Aboriginal mother tongue, 24% said they could converse in an Aboriginal language. This suggests some people are learning to speak an Aboriginal language later in life.
90% - proportion of Inuit aged 15 and over living in the Canadian Arctic who could understand or speak an Aboriginal language, mainly Inuktitut, according to the 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey.
71,955 - number of people in Canada who speak Cree, the most commonly spoken among Aboriginal languages (as of Census 2001).
- The next most commonly spoken Aboriginal languages are Inuktitut (29,615 people) and Ojibway (18,540). Tlingit was the least commonly spoken; only 70 people reported speaking this language in Canada in 2001.
Increasingly educated
More Aboriginal people are achieving post-secondary education.
- Census data for 1996 show that 34% of Aboriginal people aged 25 to 44 living in off-reserve areas had completed post-secondary studies. By 2001, this figure had risen to 39%. The 2001 proportion for the total Canadian population was 55%.
- Among the off-reserve Aboriginal population, the percentage of North American Indian people aged 25 to 44 with a completed post-secondary education rose from 34% to 38%. Figures for the Métis went from 35% to 42%, while the percentage for Inuit increased slightly from 30% to 32%.
Preserving a heritage
More Aboriginal children living off-reserve are attending preschool programs designed specifically for Aboriginal children.
Four percent of 14-year olds had attended preschool programs specifically designed for Aboriginal children when they were preschoolers, according to the 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey. However 16% of 6-year old Aboriginal children living off-reserve had attended preschool programs specifically designed for them. This is a four-fold increase over a period of eight years.
One in three Aboriginal people living in urban areas reported having access to First Nations, Métis or Inuit traditional medicines, healing or wellness practices in their city, town or community. This is compared to about 26% in rural areas and 14% in the Canadian Arctic.
Business success stories
72% - proportion of Aboriginal business owners that reported profits in 2002, from a total surveyed of 1,126. Forty-three percent also reported an increase in sales revenues from 2001.
63% - or nearly two out of three Aboriginal business owners anticipated growth in 2003. That proportion rose to 70% in British Columbia and the Yukon, where it was highest.
For more detailed information on Aboriginal peoples at the community level, see 2001 Aboriginal Population Profile or 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey Community Profiles.
For information on this page or help finding more data, contact Media Relations.
