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Aboriginal, immigrant population rises according to census

Canada – including Manitoba and Saskatchewan – is becoming more diverse. This is according to an information release from Statistics Canada, made public on Oct. 25.
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Canada – including Manitoba and Saskatchewan – is becoming more diverse.

This is according to an information release from Statistics Canada, made public on Oct. 25. The release included information about Canada’s Indigenous population, housing and immigration to Canada.

According to the report, around 1.67 million Canadians – five per cent of the total population – are of Aboriginal descent.

That number has grown by a whopping 42.5 per cent since 2006, with the number of registered or treaty Indian status people rising by more than 30 per cent.

Northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba are among the regions with the highest per-capita Indigenous population in Canada. The electoral regions that contain Flin Flon and Creighton – Churchill-Keewatinook Aski for Manitoba and Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River in Saskatchewan – have the highest percentage of Indigenous population of anywhere in Canada’s provinces.

More than three-quarters of the population of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski is Aboriginal, along with just over 70 per cent of Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River.

About 130,500 Indigenous people call Manitoba home, making up more than 10 per cent of the province’s population.

Statistics regarding the status of First Nations housing in the release show that many of these homes are in rough condition.

 The release shows that two-thirds of First Nations Canadians lived in homes that required at least minor repairs, with almost a full quarter living in homes needing major repairs.

‘Crowded housing’, is what 23 per cent of First Nations people live in, according to Stats Canada. This classification describes a home with at least one fewer bedroom than needed by the occupants.

These statistics are an improvement over previous censuses. The proportion of  Aboriginal people who live in homes that needed major repairs has decreased over the past five years.

More than 1,200,000 people have immigrated to Canada since 2011.

Countries with the highest number of immigrants to Canada include the Philippines, India, China, Iran, Pakistan and the United States.

According to the data, 2.2 million children in Canada – more than a third – were born in foreign countries – a dramatic increase from years past. At current rates, nearly half of all Canadian children could be born in other countries by 2036.

The vast majority of immigrants speak one or both of Canada’s official languages, with 93 per cent of immigrants speaking either English or French at least at a conversational level.

Manitoba became a hot spot for newly-landed Canadians. The province’s share of national immigration has nearly tripled over the past five years, going from 1.8 per cent of all net immigration to 5.2 per cent in the latest report.

Immigration statistics for northern Manitoba were not readily available, but 365 net immigrants were confirmed to have moved to northern Saskatchewan since 2011.

In the Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River riding, a total of 40 refugees were counted in the census, while 4.1 per cent of the population were considered visible minorities.

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