Canadian people
As of 2023, there were 38,781,291 Canadian people living in Canada, of whom only a fraction (just over a million) are First Nations people. The 2021 Census counted 1,048,405 First Nations people living in Canada, marking the first time that the First Nations population surpassed the 1 million mark in a Canadian census.
Estimates of the numbers of First Nations people living in Canada, prior to colonization by European people vary widely. Encyclopaedia Britannica estimates 200,000, while modern scholars estimate as many as 2 million.[1] First Nations people's populations dropped following contact with European settlers, but have risen in recent decades.
Up until the late 20th century, the population of non-aboriginal peoples in Canada was largely of European ethnic background. But Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced sweeping changes to Canada's immigration laws, and, as a consequence, Canada's population is now approximately drawn from individuals whose ethnic background is from Asia or Africa.
References
- ↑ David Michael Smith. Counting the Dead: Estimating the Loss of Life in the Indigenous Holocaust, 1492-Present, Native American Symposium: Representations and Realities, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, p. 8. Retrieved on 2023-10-15. “And he estimated that another 2 million Native people lived in what is today Canada, Alaska, and Greenland at that time.”