On behalf of the Métis Nation, I thank you for inviting the Métis National Council to express its views here today on this most critical issue.
The Métis Nation is represented through democratically elected, province-wide governance structures from Ontario westward—namely, the Métis Nation of Ontario, the Manitoba Métis Federation, Métis Nation Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of Alberta, and Métis Nation British Columbia. The Métis National Council has represented the Métis Nation nationally and internationally since 1983. Based on the citizenship criteria established by the Métis Nation in 2002, the number of Métis Nation citizens in Canada we estimate as approximately 400,000, roughly one-third of the aboriginal population.
Our citizenship criteria are based on self-identification, historic Métis Nation ancestry, and acceptance by the historic Métis Nation community. In the Powley decision in 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada, in addition to upholding the constitutionally protected aboriginal rights of the Métis, also identified criteria for membership in the Métis rights-bearing community, based on ancestral connection to and acceptance by historic Métis communities.
Since the Powley decision, the Métis National Council's five governing members—that is, the provincial governance bodies of the Métis Nation—have established citizenship registries to determine who can vote in their province-wide ballot box elections and receive programs and services delivered to them. These registries are largely built, but even when completed, will not cover the entire Métis population in our historic homeland.
We rely on the census for total population counts, as well as for socio-economic information on persons who identify as Métis or who have Métis ancestry. The census changes proposed by the Government of Canada will have a major impact on all aboriginal data, but in particular, the data on Métis. The federal government has no administrative database for Métis as it does for first nations through the INAC registry.
It did, however, sign a Métis Nation protocol with the Métis National Council in 2008, through which we are pursuing a number of key initiatives to improve the conditions and expand opportunities for our people. Through the protocol, the federal government and the Métis National Council have also engaged the five westernmost provincial governments in joint initiatives on economic development, and we are in the process of exploring how to apply this multilateral approach to other key areas such as education and health.
A critical starting point to these initiatives is developing a reliable database for the Métis population. The government's proposal to eliminate the long-form census questionnaire and have all households get the short form, supplemented by a household survey of one in three households to collect information previously gathered by the long-form census, causes us concern. The household survey, as we understand it, will be voluntary, and of course, people will know that. Lower-income households and households with lower education levels are less likely to respond to a voluntary survey than would middle-class households, increasing the possibility of skewed data from that survey.
Given the standard rule of statistics that the smaller the population the larger the sample size should be to obtain reliable data, any measure that will lower Métis participation will jeopardize the ability to collect accurate and reliable data, especially when the data is broken down by age, sex, income group, and geography.
The proposed changes will jeopardize our ability to conduct post-census surveys of aboriginal people, such as the aboriginal peoples survey. That survey, which we have relied on for much of our data, was based on responses to the long-form questionnaire.
Finally, the changes will certainly make it more difficult, if not impossible, to compare 2011 information with information from previous censuses. Such comparisons are important to establish growth rates and demographic and socio-economic trends. The fact of the matter is that we will not know the full impact of these changes on Métis data until we know how people respond to the voluntary survey. But we believe the federal government is clearly taking a needless risk that has the potential to thwart continued progress for Métis people.
Thank you.