Gloria Galloway and Travis Grant published this article in 2013 in The Globe and Mail The authors report on the phenomenon where many Canadians are now claiming to be aboriginal. Galloway and Grant cite Wayne Smith of Staistics Canada, who discovered “an unexpectedly high number… who claimed to be aboriginal” in the 2011 data from the National Household Survey. Yet, many of these Canadians did not report aboriginal identity in the census of 2006.
I find this article worrisome on the basis of comparing data from 2006 and 2011. Having worked with Staistics Canada for the 2002 census, I was told, and in turn relayed, that nams on the census were simply for keeping track of households completed.
The authors comment that aboriginal leaders believe the trend to be partly a result of social media and a new sense of pride. Betty Ann Lavallee, National Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples states that young people ” are no longer afraid. They know they have the basis of law behind them and they’re becoming extremely vocal.”
Wilf falk, Manitoba’s top statistician, indicated that ‘the number of people who self-identified as Metis at both the national and provincial level went up about 60 percent… He attributes the shift to increased awareness of identity.”