Some 8,000 more people in northern Ontario say they are Indigenous

According to the latest numbers from the 2021 census, there are about 8,000 more people in northern Ontario who say they are Indigenous.

In the northeast, it jumped from 61,076 in 2016 to 67,345 in 2021, with about 2,820 more people self-identifying as First Nations and 3,115 more telling census takers that they are Métis.

Much of that increase was in the City of Greater Sudbury, where 17,930 people reported to Statistics Canada they are Indigenous, up 2,970 from the previous census.

In northwestern Ontario, about 2,000 more say they are Indigenous, for a total of about 55,000.

However, the number of people who say that they are a registered or status First Nations person under the federal government's Indian Act remained stable over the last five years.

In northeastern Ontario, that figure went up slightly from 29,330 in 2016 to 30,025 in 2021.

Indigenous leaders say the census data is not very useful because Canadians self-report whether or not they are First Nations, Métis or Inuit.

"You know this whole idea about counting Indians: If you're going to count them, count them properly," said Jason Batise, the executive director of the Wabun Tribal Council, which covers the Brunswick House, Chapleau Ojibwe, Flying Post, Matachewan and Mattagami First Nations. 

"Count First Nations people, stop counting this pan-aboriginal, anybody that puts up their hand and says they're Indigenous. There has to be a way that it's verified."

He says the tribal council has about 4,000 members and the status rolls have gotten a bit longer in recent years with court decisions doing away with Indian Act clauses that restricted status to women who married non-Indigenous men, among others. 

"Instead of having that adversarial system judge us both and make the rules for us... there's a better approach for First Nations and Canada to sit down together and say 'Ok, what are we going to do about this citizenship thing?'" Batise said.

Batise says Wabun communities are "starting to push back" against some Métis groups claiming "nationhood" in their traditional territory, which they don't recognize. 

Mitch Case, a regional councillor for the Huron-Superior Regional Métis community based in Sault Ste. Marie, says there is a lot of misunderstanding about what is meant by Métis.

He says to be a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario, you have to prove an ancestral connection to one of seven traditional Métis communities in the province, most of which are in the north, or a tie with Métis in western Canada. 

Case says that's one of the reasons he can't put much "trust" in the census numbers, which show the Métis population in Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay dropped in the last five years.

"There are people out there who may identify as Métis, but maybe they use that word in a different way than when we say it," he said, adding that he generally feels Statistics Canada is "moving in the right direction" with how it counts Indigenous people.

Reg Niganobe, the Grand Council Chief of the Anishinabek Nation of 39 communities across Ontario, says he was more focused on the census numbers showing Indigenous people are more likely to live in a low-income household and First Nations children make up more than half of those in the child welfare system.

He says those problems, as well as questions about Indigenous citizenship, are rooted in the Indian Act, which the government seems unwilling to discuss. 

"It's almost non-existent. They are still standing firm in the belief that the Indian Act governs all," said Niganobe.