The Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study was released last week. This extensive study, done by the Environics Institute, surveyed representative samples of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Canadians as well as non-Aboriginal Canadians living in 11 cities (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax and Ottawa). In addition to the full report, reports based on each city will be released, and the Toronto Report has already been released.
You can read the key findings of the full study here. Notably the majority of Aboriginal respondents feel they are viewed negatively by non-Aboriginals, and have experienced "teasing" or "insults" and discrimination because of their identity. The following are some of the stereotypes Aboriginal respondents listed when asked to identify the stereotypes non-Aboriginals hold about them:
Don’t have to pay taxes, free education, hunt and fish where ever we want, money coming out of their pocket goes directly into ours, when you bring out status card [non-Aboriginal] people react.
Alcoholics, drink a lot, live off welfare, uneducated, take advantage of the system to get things for free from the government, drug addicts, no positive outcomes.
One statistic that shocked me was that 54% of non-Aboriginals living in urban areas say they have no knowledge of the residential school system, this despite Harper's public apology in 2008, only a dozen years after the last school closed in 1996. 65% of Aboriginal respondents said they (12%) or a relative (53%) attended a residential school, and the majority of these respondents agreed that their experiences with the system have impacted their life strongly.
The fact that the comments on cbc's coverage of the report had to be closed after the section was flooded with negative and at times racist commentary demonstrates that negative stereotypes about Aboriginal people in Canada persist, and the majority of non-Aboriginal respondents agreed that Aboriginals face discrimination today (but not to a greater extent than other minorities). Despite feeling that non-Aboriginals hold negative views of Aboriginals, Aboriginal respondents (77%) were more likely than non-Aboriginal respondents (54%) to totally agree that "there is room for a variety of languages and cultures" in Canada. In addition to this urban Aboriginal respondents are proud to be Canadian and feel: they are mostly accepted by non-Aboriginals, the city they live in is their home, and they can improve their cities.
The full report contains a lot more information than I have briefly provided and I encourage people to take a look.
Links:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/urban-natives-content-study-90071582.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2010/12/08/man-urban-aboriginal-study.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2008/05/16/f-faqs-residential-schools.html
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