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Our provincial aboriginal social policies have been focused in the last ten years on Native claims, on Aboriginal self-government, and on economic development through gambling. We are in a so called Knowledge economy, yet our government has not provided the opportunities for our Aboriginal people to learn. Our government has continued a fragmentary economic policy of divide and conquer with the result to extend the social condition for the benefit of the few and privileged within our Aboriginal community. The office of the provincial auditor has reported the poor predicament of our children living on reserves(1). And our provincial jails include over 9,000 Aboriginal prisoners. I have previously reported the financial liability for not educating our poor children(2) And to day I want to provide a dramatic scenario for the future demographic changes of our province. This scenario is not a prediction or a forecast of the growth of the Aboriginal people in Saskatchewan; it is just a reasonable scenario to emphasize, today and not tomorrow, the need to address social and economic policies towards our Aboriginal population.

A scenario of growth for the Aboriginal population:

The registered Indian population living on reserves increased to 38,444 in 1996 from 30,893 in 1991, that is a population jump of 24% in a span of 5 years(3).

The registered Indian population living on and off reserve increased to 90,797 in 2000 from 74,095 in 1996, that is a jump of 23% in a span of 4 years(4).

The registered and non registered Aboriginal population is presently 14% of the total population(5). In July 2000 there were 1,021,762 people covered by Saskatchewan Health. Therefore, there were close to 143,047 registered and non registered Aboriginal people living in Saskatchewan in July 2000.

From the statistics provided above we have an indication that the net growth of the registered and non registered Aboriginal population could have been in the order of 5% per year.

Let us now provide a scenario of the growth of the Aboriginal population between the years 2000 and 2040 under the premise that this population is 143,047 in July 2000, and that this population grows at the rate of 5% per year. I have simulated the growth of the Aboriginal population and after 40 years this population reaches the value of one million people.

You can refer to the following pictures reporting the details of this simulation run through the Vensim(6) software package. But what is important to notice is that the Saskatchewan total population has been stagnant at about one million people for the last decades, and now we are presenting a reasonable scenario, as at this time, that the Aboriginal population could reach one million people in the year 2040. I leave to the readers and to our politicians ponder about the social and economic consequences for not addressing today the changing demography of this province.

References/endnotes

Relevant political and economics articles http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign

1. 1999 Fall Report, Volume 2, Report of the Provincial Auditor, Saskatchewan, Chapter 2, Education, pages 117-132 http://www.auditor.sk.ca

2. Honourable Eric Cline has not balanced the budget yet, he forgot our school-children, by Mario deSantis, April 2, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000/desantis155/notbalanced.html

3. Census Population, 1991 & 1996, Communities & Regions, INDIAN RESERVES, Saskatchewan Bureau of Statistics http://www.gov.sk.ca/bureau.stats/pop/pop1.htm

4. People registered under the Indian Act living on and off reserve was 74,095 in 1996 (Statistics Canada, Census 1996) and it increased to 90,797 in 2000 (Appendix 1-2000 Covered Population, Saskatchewan Health). http://www.statcan.ca:80/english/Pgdb/People/Population/demo37.htm http://www.gov.sk.ca/health/covpop2000/CovPopBook2000.pdf

5. Aboriginals poised to irrevocably alter political landscape, by Adam Killick, National Post, February 07, 2000

6. A free of charge educational package for Vensim software is available at http://www.vensim.com