The total Canadian PIAAC sample comprised about 27,000 respondents aged 16 to 65. Certain
demographic groups, including Indigenous peoples, immigrants, official language minorities, and youth aged 16 to 24, were oversampled. The PIAAC questionnaire allows respondents to identify themselves as Indigenous13 and as First Nations, Métis, or Inuit. It also allows respondents to self-identify as Registered Indians. While selecting “Registered Indian” does not exclude an individual from self-identifying with another group on the background questionnaire, and there is in fact considerable overlap between First Nations and Registered Indians, this report presents data for Registered Indians parallel to the data for other populations.
This report provides insight into all of these groups, but with an important caveat: it examines only
Indigenous populations living off reserve. While this has little impact on findings for Métis or Inuit, since only very small numbers live on First Nations reserves, or on those who claim multiple identities (since they are very few in number), it significantly circumscribes results for First Nations, as outlined below. As stated, this report also provides insight into the Registered Indian population, as recognized by the 1876 Indian Act and its amendments.
As noted earlier, Indigenous populations were oversampled in specific provinces and territories so as to provide provincial and territorial estimates about Indigenous populations in particular. More specifically, the sample size of the Indigenous population was increased in order to obtain statistically reliable results for those provinces and territories. Oversamples of Indigenous peoples were drawn in British Columbia (only for those living off reserve in large urban centres), Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. This oversampling of Indigenous populations has allowed results to be presented for Indigenous peoples in general, but also, when possible, for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit populations.
Where possible, additional results for those who identified as Registered Indians are presented parallel to the other data. For the purpose of oversampling, Indigenous respondents are defined as persons who identified as belonging to one or more of the following groups: First Nations, Registered Indians, Métis, and Inuit.
13 In this report, data for the “non-Indigenous” population are often presented alongside data for the Indigenous population or for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. For the purpose of this report, “non-Indigenous” refers to the population that does not self-identify as Indigenous.
Oversampling resulted in a total number of 5,378 Indigenous individual respondents in the total sample for Canada. Table I.2 provides information on the sample sizes of the population aged 16 to 65 by Indigenous identification, in Canada and in provinces and territories where Indigenous populations were oversampled.
Table I.2 Sample sizes of population aged 16 to 65, by Indigenous identification, Canada and oversampled populations, 2012
Indigenous First Nations Registered
Indians Métis Inuit Non-Indigenous
Canada 5,378 2,406 2,112 2,225 694 21,629
Ontario 1,241 650 480 566 - 3,975
Manitoba 872 235 249 632 - 1,415
Northwest
Territories 454 297 328 72 81 461
British Columbia 658 339 258 307 - 2,036
Yukon 356 294 272 56 - 470
Saskatchewan 678 309 301 356 - 913
Nunavut 594 - - - 579 176
Source: Datasets for the 2012 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies
For sampling purposes, this report often groups together all Indigenous respondents into one variable:
“Indigenous.” When used, this variable refers to all respondents within the sample area of the particular analysis (Canada or a province or territory) who selected an Indigenous identity when completing the PIAAC background questionnaire. This category is used to overcome the limitations of the sample size when examining the population by socioeconomic or demographic characteristics that divided it into small segments. This approach is used only as a first layer analysis of the data; it should not be interpreted as a lack of cognizance of the diversity of Indigenous populations in Canada.
Notwithstanding these limitations, this report was developed to be relevant for as many applications as possible, and thus analysis was carried out using registered and non-registered status, where possible.
It should be noted that a very small number of respondents identified as belonging to more than one Indigenous group and that these respondents were also excluded from the analysis due to their small sample size.14 This means that when this report presents findings on a particular Indigenous group (e.g., Inuit), it is referring only to respondents who identified as belonging exclusively to that particular Indigenous group.
Lastly, as this report analyzes data related to Indigenous people in Canada, it is valuable to underscore and address the notion of data sovereignty. The decolonization of statistics is a necessary step toward the exercise of Indigenous authority over information governance, which would improve the relevance of existing statistical frameworks as well as Indigenous participation in data collection processes and governance. This requires a nation-based approach informed by good-faith examinations of questions of jurisdiction, policies, and procedures. The ultimate objective of Indigenous data sovereignty is to generate information that better responds to the needs and aspirations of Indigenous peoples, including
self-determination. Achieving data sovereignty is an ongoing process, and, as such, readers should engage with this report with a degree of circumspection.
14 Please see Appendix I for more information.
Indigenous peoples in Canada and education: historical context
Indigenous peoples have been living in what is now Canada since time immemorial. Indigenous societies are linguistically and culturally diverse, and derive from traditional world views that place them within a socially, materially, and spiritually integrated ecosystem where human beings exist in respectful and equitable relationships with both living and non-living things (Bopp, 1984). Indigenous Elders traditionally played, and continue to play, a central role in education and are revered as keepers of knowledge and culture. Education and the transmission of culture and history occurred primarily through an oral tradition that—while existing alongside other traditions—was viewed as intrinsic to Indigenous societies. This education was also rooted in the natural environment (St. Germain & Dyck, 2011) and was holistic—it addressed the total being and the whole community (O’Connor & Sterenberg, 2014).
These world views, as well as Indigenous ways of life and understandings, were undermined in many ways by assimilationist and colonialist practices, founded in racist beliefs. The disruption of Indigenous cultures is vividly illustrated in the domain of education. It is important to note that, in this context, we use the term
“education” to mean formal classroom instruction, rather than the general transmission of knowledge and culture to children, characteristic of all societies.
Formalized education was introduced to Indigenous communities by European missionaries as early as the 17th century in order to Christianize and assimilate Indigenous peoples into European settler society. Government involvement in Indigenous education increased throughout the 19th century and, after Confederation in 1867, sweeping policies, which included the 1876 Indian Act and the extension of a network of government-sponsored, church-operated residential schools, undermined Indigenous sovereignty and attempted to erode Indigenous culture and identity. These schools spread across the southern and central parts of the country as Europeans settled further west, and reached the North in the middle of the 20th century.
Indigenous peoples and education policy: residential schools
The residential school system undermined the autonomy of Indigenous peoples. Mandatory attendance at residential schools, together with other assimilationist laws and policies, caused permanent ruptures in the transmission of traditional knowledge, language, and culture, and extinguished practices that were vital to the cultural survival of Indigenous peoples (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples [RCAP], 1996a; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada [TRC], 2015a, 2015d). The TRC has described these practices as cultural genocide15 (TRC, 2015e).
Through residential schools came a series of practices that ranged from willful neglect to active persecution.
Schools were chronically underfunded, receiving a per capita allotment that was a third or less of the funding directed to comparable facilities for non-Indigenous children (Barnes, Josefowitz, & Cole, 2006, p. 20). Limited funding inevitably resulted in underqualified teachers, overcrowded classrooms, poor construction and maintenance of buildings, and an inadequate diet for students (TRC, 2015d).
These problems were aggravated by a ubiquitous indifference to the quality of education provided in residential schools. Indigenous students were subject to very low scholastic expectations, to the extent that, prior to the Second World War, many residential schools required Indigenous youth to contribute to
15 The TRC defines “cultural genocide” as “the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group” (TRC, 2015a, p. 3).
the sustainability of the schools by spending a considerable portion of each day completing domestic and farm work, rather than pursuing academic studies. Students were also subject to curricula and pedagogical methods that were not culturally congruent with their backgrounds, with the result that many experienced difficulties learning (Chartrand et al., 2006; RCAP, 1996a).
This pedagogical neglect was in turn amplified by institutionalized efforts to eradicate Indigenous cultural practices. Most schools prohibited the use of Indigenous languages, which “likely impeded aboriginal children’s ability to progress in first-language proficiency and to learn English as a second language”
(Barnes et al., 2006, p. 24). Added to this was a belief that Indigenous children needed to be separated from their parents in order to be “civilized” (TRC, 2015a, p. 85). This belief produced an amendment to the Indian Act in 1920 that gave the federal government the authority to force any First Nations child to attend a residential school. Children as young as three years old were taken from their parents and placed in residential schools, which were often very far from home (Barnes et al., 2006).
The prohibition of Indigenous languages and cultural activities, and the separation from family and community, often caused deep psychological scars, leaving Indigenous children feeling confused and ashamed about their identities and heritage (TRC, 2015e). In addition to these many injustices, sexual and physical abuse against Indigenous children was widespread throughout the residential school system.
Not surprisingly, the TRC (2015a) has described the residential school system as an attack on Indigenous children, families, languages, culture, spirituality, and nations. Yet it is important to acknowledge that there were significant differences among Indigenous groups in how this attack was experienced.