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From the Toronto Star

First Nations assails census results

Jan 27, 2008 - Sue Bailey, THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA–The Assembly of First Nations says Statistics Canada drew flawed, potentially damaging conclusions from the 2006 census and it wants an independent review.

At issue is how StatsCan made the politically sensitive assertion that more status Indians live off reserves than on. Last-minute changes made Jan. 15 just before those numbers were released did not fix the problem, says Dan Wilson, a special adviser to the assembly.

He was incensed to learn early that day that the agency had once again based its on-reserve figures on how many people "identify" as being North American Indian. That initially led StatsCan to say that 60 per cent of First Nations live off reserve, while 40 per cent live on.

Minutes before reporters filed related stories, census staff suddenly clarified they should refer more specifically to status Indians and said, 55 per cent live off reserve while 45 per cent live on.

In Wilson's view, both sets of figures were wrong and could potentially affect funding to cash-strapped First Nations.

"This world-class organization that runs on its image and its supposed professionalism had four different numbers within the same half-hour," he said.

"For a number of years now, the AFN has been trying to get Statistics Canada to understand the distinction between the aboriginal peoples who are recognized under the Constitution and whomever else they're counting as having aboriginal identity or ancestry."

There's really no way of validating claims of self-identity, Wilson said in an interview. "They could be anyone."

He said on-reserve numbers must at least be based on census respondents who say they're registered Indians and entitled to live on First Nations.

But even those numbers are sketchy because the census under-counted registered Indians by about 200,000 compared to government figures, he says.

That's largely because 22 reserves, including some of Canada's largest bands, refused to take part. On another 166 First Nations, he says, at least one-quarter of residents weren't counted.

Had StatsCan used the census number of registered Indians – 564,870 – it would have found that 53 per cent live on reserve, a much closer reflection of the federal Indian Registry.

Instead, there are now two conflicting data streams that are supposed to help set crucial funding for native education, medical, housing and social services.

"It's exceedingly irritating," Wilson said. "Let's have a third party take a hard look at this. Have somebody independent analyze the two sets of data, analyze the problems with (each) and tell us which one is more likely to be reliable."

A spokeswoman for Statistics Canada said the census survey is much different from the more static and administrative Indian Registry.

As for the confusion around on- and off-reserve numbers: "There's many ways in the census to look at this information," said Jane Badets. "It depends on how you're analyzing it and who's using the data."

StatsCan uses the broader identity figure to peg on-reserve numbers because "it's how we've shown the data since the 1996 census," she said. "And that certainly meets the needs of a wide range of users."

Dan Beavon, director of strategic research for the Indian Affairs Department, said officials there specifically use registered Indian figures to assess and project on-reserve population.

Asked about the StatsCan approach, he said: "That's not how we would break the numbers down.

"I've made that point many times myself to StatsCanada .... I imagine that they'll be doing changes to the way the census questions are done for the 2011 census."

There's a political twist to any hint that reserves are emptying. The federal Conservatives have increased the focus on off-reserve needs, most visibly by aligning themselves politically with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.

The congress says it represents off-reserve people across Canada, but its membership is disputed by rival groups like the Assembly of First Nations that are more closely identified with reserves.

Conservative reaction to the census was predictable, said Wilson of the AFN. He cited newspaper comments by Tory MP Rod Bruinooge that public funds are too skewed toward reserves.

"We're proposing ... what we see as being major systemic reform before massive new investments are made," said Bruinooge, parliamentary secretary to the Indian Affairs minister.

"You need to fix the broken system or you're going to simply have the same results over and over again."

The Indian Registry says there were 615 bands in Canada as of Dec. 31, 2006 with 763,555 members. Most of that total – 404,117 – lived on reserves, while 335,109 lived off reserve and 24,329 were on Crown land.