Spatial Residential Patterns of Aboriginals and their Socioeconomic Integration in Selected Canadian Cities

In recent years, the Aboriginal population of Canada has been increasing at a faster rate than the non-Aboriginal population. Between 1996 and 2001, the non-Aboriginal population of Canada increased by 8.58%, while the Aboriginal population increased by 19.98%. About 35.9% of the Aboriginal population lives in the 23 census metropolitan areas (CMAs) of Canada, a proportion that has not changed since 1996 (Statistics Canada 2003). Though this is lower than the 62.5% of non-Aboriginal Canadians who live in metropolitan areas, it is clear that Aboriginal people have a large presence in Canadian urban areas. This situation is likely to continue, and, in fact, the urban Aboriginal population can even be expected to increase (Peters 2000). A notable feature of the growth of the metropolitan Aboriginal population is its unevenness across the country. Some smaller metropolitan areas in Quebec, such as Sherbrooke, Chicoutimi, and Trois-Rivieres, experienced negative growth, and even Montreal experienced lower-than-average population growth of Aboriginals (Table 16.1 – page 264). The two largest CMAs (Toronto and Vancouver) also exhibited below-average growth at around 11% during the last decade. In comparison, some metropolitan areas in southwestern Ontario and in the western provinces showed greater than average Aboriginal population growth. Kitchener, Windsor, and Calgary each showed increases of more than 40% over the last ten years. The three metropolitan areas with the highest proportional populations of Aboriginal origin (about 10%) are Winnipeg, Regina, and Saskatoon. They did not show greater-than-average growth in their Aboriginal populations. Evidently, the Aboriginal population of Canada is redistributing according to changing migration patterns. The causes for this redistribution could be many, such as local economic conditions, the proximity of reserves to metropolitan areas, and the dynamics of on-reserve/off-reserve living conditions in the different provinces. Our primary interest in this study is not so much the broader spatial patterns of the Aboriginal population, but rather their patterns within metropolitan areas at the small area level. Aboriginals in Canada have their distinct cultures and