For the past decade the urban aboriginal population has been one of the fastest growing in the country. In 2001, almost half the aboriginals in Canada lived off reserve; today that number has risen to over 75 per cent.
In Ottawa, the aboriginal population has more than doubled in 10 years, increasing from 13,495 in 2001 to 30,565 in 2011, according census and national household survey data provided by Statistics Canada.
It is the same in metropolitan areas across the country.
A study completed in 2010 by The Environics Institute, called the Urban Aboriginal People’s Survey, dispelled the conventional belief that aboriginal people living in cities are just passing through. Instead, most are happy with their lives in the city and a lot of them have been living in an urban setting for two or three generations.
What I hope to show is that, while there are many reasons for aboriginal peoples to move to the city, one things is for sure: urban aboriginals are here to stay.
This graphic was created using Statistics Canada census data from 2001 and 2006, as well as 2011 National Household Survey data. It demonstrates the growth of Ottawa’s aboriginal population, which has been growing steadily in the past decade — more than doubling from 2001 to 2011.
This graphic was created using 2011 National Household Survey data. It shows the age distribution of the aboriginal population in Ottawa. Since a large majority of aboriginal citizens in Ottawa are working age adults and children, it shows that the population in Ottawa probably consists mostly of families, demonstrating that the urban aboriginal population in Ottawa is here to stay and not just students who are passing through.