2006 Aboriginal Census Data Released

And this is what the papers are saying about the northern content

Aboriginal Census 2006 highlights (January 15, 2008): Canada’s aboriginal population has broken the one million mark with 1,172,790 people identifying themselves as First Nations, Metis or Inuit. The aboriginal population has grown by 45 per cent since 1996, outpacing the eight per cent growth in the non-aboriginal population. Women accounted for 51.2 per cent of the aboriginal population.

Aboriginals a fast-growing, urban population, census shows (January 15, 2008): Canada’s aboriginal population is undergoing fast growth — topping a million — and one that is now for the first time mostly living in urban areas, Statistics Canda’s latest Census release shows. A total of 1,172,790 people reported Aboriginal identity in the latest census, up 20% from 2001.

StatsCan says Inuit, Albertans die younger (January 15, 2008): If you want to outlive your fellow-Canadians, maybe you should pack for Prince Edward Island. And, Alberta would be a place you’d want to avoid. According to Statistics Canada figures for 2005, residents of the island province lived the longest in Canada — to an average age of 75.6 years. Alberta, meanwhile, has an average life expectancy of just 71.6 years, the lowest among provinces and third lowest when including the territories. The Northwest Territories stood at 61.1 years and Nunavut had the lowest by an Arctic mile, at an average of 47.8 years.

Aboriginal numbers soar, census shows (January 15, 2008): Canada’s aboriginal population has increased 45 per cent over a decade and cracked the one-million mark for the first time since records have been kept, new census data indicate. In 2006, 1,172,790 people said they were members of at least one of three aboriginal groups: North American Indian, Métis (mixed native-European descent) or Inuit. The fastest gain in population of the three groups was in the Métis population, which almost doubled in 10 years. Those who identified themselves as Indian increased by 29 per cent, while the Inuit population went up 26 per cent.

Canada’s aboriginal population tops million mark: StatsCan (January 15, 2008): Canada’s aboriginal population has topped the million mark for the first time, according to the latest census, an increase of 45 per cent from a decade earlier. Statistics Canada, which released new data Tuesday from the 2006 census on Canada’s aboriginal population, counted 1,172,790 Indian, Métis and Inuit people. Part of the reason for the increase is higher birth rates among aboriginals compared to the non-aboriginal population, according to Statistics Canada.

Census seeks to distinguish between being aboriginal and feeling aboriginal (January 15, 2008): Ask Willie Simon who he is and he’ll give you a look that asks why you’re even bothering. “I’m not a German or a Frenchman or an Englishman,” says the 67-year-old jack-of-all-trades as he hauls up the net strung under the frozen Mackenzie River where he’s been fishing for 47 years. “I’m Gwich’In.” But put the same question to Tiara Bernhardt, a 17-year-old Inuvialuit girl, and the answer is not so clear. “As I grow older and go to school in different places, I’ll probably refer to myself as a young Canadian,” she says. The distance between those two answers is reflected in the latest census results from Statistics Canada.

Big cities, big aboriginal population: urban trend stresses service agencies (January 15, 2008): Canada’s native population has topped the million mark for the first time in the latest census, with more than half the country’s 1.2 million aboriginals living off reserve. Fifty-four per cent who consider themselves North American Indian, Metis or Inuit live in or near urban areas, according to the 2006 national survey. This represents a 50 per cent increase of city-living aboriginals over the last decade, say figures released Tuesday by Statistics Canada. But analysts say what appears to be an increasing urbanization of Canada’s aboriginal population does not mean reserves are emptying. On the contrary, there has been net migration back to First Nations over the last 40 years.

Natives leaving reserves, moving to cities (January 15, 2008): More aboriginals are moving off traditional lands seeking jobs and a better life, StatsCan says, and Ottawa-Gatineau is one of their destinations. Data from the 2006 census on Canada’s aboriginal population, released this morning, shows 20,590 Ottawa-Gatineau census area residents identified themselves as aboriginal — a 51.9 per cent increase since the last census.

Aboriginal language shows gains and losses (January 15, 2008): The growth in Canada’s aboriginal population hasn’t necessarily translated into more people speaking an aboriginal language, the 2006 census reveals. Knowledge and regular use of an aboriginal language rests largely with the older generations and while some languages gained speakers over the last decade, others lost, according to data contained in the Statistics Canada report released Tuesday on the country’s aboriginal population.

Number of aboriginals in crowded dwellings drops (January 15, 2008): Aboriginal Canadians are almost four times as likely as non-aboriginals to live in a crowded home and three times as likely to live in one that needs major repairs. That’s according to the 2006 census report on Canada’s aboriginal population released Tuesday by Statistics Canada.

Aboriginals a young population (January 15, 2008): More than 50% of all aboriginal people in Canada haven’t hit their 30s yet, according to census data released Tuesday by Statistics Canada on the aboriginal population. The report shows that in 2006, the median age of the aboriginal population was just 27 years old, meaning half of the population was older and half was younger than that age.

Most of Canada’s 61 aboriginal languages continue decades-long slide (January 15, 2008): The lively five-year-olds in Sandra Ipana’s language class chant through the calendar in Inuvialuktun. On the floor, elder Emma Dick plays word games with two shy little twin sisters. The posters on the wall are bright and there are plenty of colourful books on the shelves. But even here, where the effort to revive the language of the Inuvialuit is strongest, Ipana says the chances of her young pupils speaking their ancestral tongue in their everyday lives are modest. “As much as I want to say it, I don’t think they’ll be fluent,” Ipana says. “But at least they’ll be aware.”

54% of aboriginals live in urban areas (January 15, 2008): More than half of Canada’s aboriginal population now has a postal code that falls in an urban centre. According to data from the 2006 census, released Tuesday by Statistics Canada, 54% of aboriginal people live in an urban centre, an increase from 50% a decade earlier. Urban areas include large cities, or census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and smaller urban centres. The aboriginal population is becoming increasingly urban, the latest census shows, and about one quarter of the aboriginal population live in nine of Canada’s 33 CMAs.

Aboriginal diversity spans language, culture (January 15, 2008): Their steady murmur was the soundtrack to the recently completed hearings on a proposed Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline, as they are to virtually any important public event in the Northwest Territories. The presence of – and need for – aboriginal translators belie the too-often-held view in mainstream Canada that all First Nations are similar. “People are different, culturally,” said Brian Chambers, manager of the pipeline hearings, who travelled with them to communities as widely separated as Fort Liard just over the British Columbia border to Sachs Harbour in the High Arctic.

Aboriginal population skyrockets: census (January 15, 2008): The aboriginal population in Canada has surpassed the one-million mark, growing nearly six times faster than the rest of the country, according to 2006 census data released today. In total, 1,172,790 people reported aboriginal identity — North American Indian (First Nations people), Métis or Inuit. Between 1996 and 2006, the aboriginal population increased by 45 per cent, nearly six times faster than the 8 per cent rate of growth for the non-aboriginal population.

Gap in age between aboriginal and general population grows to 13 years (January 15, 2008): The ravages of alcohol, drugs and suicides lie in a cemetery on the outskirts of this remote coastal settlement in northern Labrador. More than 20 wooden makeshift crosses dot the side of the lone road that leads into this tiny village. “The graveyard is filling up with crosses,” laments Gregory Rich, a land claims negotiator for the Innu Nation. The ages on many of the markers show lives snuffed out before their prime - and deaths that came about as a result of a vicious cycle that still afflicts too many young Innu, Rich says.