Investing in First Nation education and social well-being shown to save gov't billions in report
The Effect of Increasing Aboriginal Educational Attainment on the Labour Force, Output and the Fiscal Balance
Prepared for the Educational Branch of Indian and North Affairs Canada | By the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS) - May 2009
From the Executive Summary
Canada’s Aboriginal population is in crisis. In 2007, the National Council of Welfare concluded that, “To date, no governmental response has made major inroads into the issues” faced by Aboriginal people. Improving the social and economic well-being of the Aboriginal population is not only a moral imperative; it is a sound investment which will pay substantial dividends in the coming decades. Aboriginal education must be a key component in any such effort.
In 2007, the CSLS published a first report setting out the potential contribution of the Aboriginal population to Canadian labour force, output and productivity using 2001 Census data. This report represents not only an update to this earlier report, but it also seeks to provide policy makers with additional incentive to prioritize Aboriginal education by thoroughly quantifying the fiscal benefits associated with improved Aboriginal social and economic well-being.
The report is divided into seven main sections. After a brief discussion of the motivation for and the methodology of the report, the second section draws a portrait of the Aboriginal population in 2006, with particular emphasis on recent developments and the issues of data comparability. The third section discusses the population projection scenarios to 2026, both for the Aboriginal and overall populations. The fourth section examines the Aboriginal population’s potential contribution to the Canadian labour force. The fifth section provides projections of income for Aboriginal Canadians in 2026 and its implications for Canadian output and productivity given different levels of increase in Aboriginal educational attainment. The sixth section builds on the methodology developed for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People to estimate the fiscal impact of increased social and economic Aboriginal well-being. The seventh section concludes.