In the year 2017 Canada will celebrate the 150^th anniversary of its Confederation. The Multiculturalism and Human Rights Branch of the Canadian Heritage Department initiated a project that would provide information for a demographic profile of Canada in 2017, with special emphasis on its multicultural aspects. Demography Division of Statistics Canada was mandated to produce population projections to reflect Canadian diversity in 2017. This is the second analytical report, presenting results of these projections, on the Aboriginal populations in Canada. The first report, entitled Population projections of visible minority groups, Canada, provinces and regions: 2001-2017 Catalogue no. 91-541-X was published in March 2005.

Demographic information is important for the measurement of social and economic conditions of a population. In 1995, projections of the Aboriginal populations were prepared by Demography Division, Statistics Canada, on request by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples ¹. That set of projections was based on the results of 1991 Aboriginal Peoples Survey and used self-identification to define Aboriginal groups. Since the release of these projections, in addition to the demographic factors, the growth of Aboriginal groups has been influenced by events leading to changes in patterns of self-identification. The projections shown in this report include only the demographic factors of growth as the other factors are too volatile to be projected.

This report consists of three parts. Part 1 describes the model used to produce the projections. It elaborates on the model's components (the base population, fertility, mortality and migration) and the analysis of those components as related to the Aboriginal populations. Part 2 presents the assumptions that were developed for each of the model's components. Also discussed are the scenarios which were chosen to analyze the future evolution of the size, demographic structure and geographic distribution of the Aboriginal populations. Part 3 presents the major conclusions from the analysis. The appendix to the report contains a series of statistical tables with detailed results of the projections.