By Nuren Nawar
Population patterns in Aboriginal Canadian populations are quite distinct from population patterns in non-Aboriginal populations. The graph below is comparing population pyramids and age structures of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadian populations in 2016. This graph shows that the Aboriginal population consists of more children, teens, and youth. and a lower population of older adults and seniors. The graph also shows that the non-Aboriginal population consists of the opposite age structure: the population of older adults and seniors is much larger than the population of children, teens and younger adults.
There are an abundance of reasons for the significant differences in population patterns between Indigenous populations and non-Indigenous populations. First of all, the life expectancy of Aboriginal peoples is much lower than that of non-Aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal peoples have life expectancies that are fifteen years less than non-Aboriginal peoples. This is due to the lack of access to necessary resources that they are provided with. These resources include traditional hunting and fishing access, nutritional food, clean drinking water, and proper healthcare. These are all important resources that Indigenous peoples are usually denied access to. Due to climate change, traditional animals that Indigenous people would hunt and fish for food are disappearing. This leaves them with no option but to purchase food from the grocery store. However, it isn't possible for many to purchase beneficial foods due to extremely high grocery store prices, making them resort to purchasing and consuming unhealthy foods that are cheaper. This usually leads to an abundance of health issues, especially diabetes. Aboriginal peoples are four times more likely to get diabetes than non-Aboriginal peoples. The fact that Indigenous peoples lack access to proper healthcare doesn't help this situation either.
The fertility rate for Indigenous peoples who have the ability to give birth is almost twice as much as the fertility rate for non-Indigenous peoples who have the ability to give birth. At the same time, the infant mortality rate is two to three times higher for Indigenous peoples who are giving birth. The reason that infant mortality rates are so high in Indigenous populations is because of the lack of proper healthcare that they receive. Many of these populations don't have access to vaccinations and medications that non-Indigenous populations have access to that ensure babies' survival. Along with this, miscarriages are also extremely likely due to all of the contamination in Indigenous peoples drinking water. Many Indigenous peoples are aware of the high infant mortality rate along with the low life expectancy, and this knowledge is what leads to the high fertility rates in Indigenous peoples. To ensure that at least one of their children survive into adulthood, Indigenous peoples will have multiple kids. It isn't guaranteed that one of their children will survive into adulthood, but to them, it's good to give it a try.
All of the individual issues discussed in this are interconnected due to the fact that one issue leads to another issue; a lack of access to necessary resources, such as food and clean drinking water and healthcare, leads to low life expectancy and high infant mortality rates; low life expectancy and high infant mortality rates leads to the overall issue of Indigenous peoples having much different population patterns than other Canadian populations.
Finally, almost all of these issues introduce mental health issues to FNMI peoples involved. Issues such as high infant mortality rates, high rates of MMIWG, stereotypes, etc introduce mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, paranoia and much more to Indigenous peoples. All of these issues, and many more, have the ability to ruin Indigenous peoples' mental health, which can lead to high suicide rates.
The Canadian government is mainly the one to blame for most of these issues. They claim that they care about FNMI populations a lot, however, they don't do anything to prove those claims. Instead, they show to people that they don't truly care about FNMI peoples by creating these issues. They don't provide Indigenous peoples with the resources that they need to survive, such as clean drinking water and affordable, nutritional food, which leads to them becoming sick. They don't even provide them with proper healthcare to treat any sicknesses that they might have. They also don't provide proper medication and vaccines to ensure that Indigenous children get the chance to become adults. They are also the reason that many MMIWG cases aren't investigated because they essentially control what the RCMP prioritizes. All of these things make it quite clear that the government doesn't care about FNMI populations and they aren't going to do anything to solve the problems that they caused. The Canadian government is witnessing all of these issues, but is not going to do anything to improve them. This means that we, as citizens who currently live on Indigenous land and are only here because Indigenous peoples made it into what it is today, need to stand up for Indigenous peoples and demand that the Canadian government start treating them with the respect that they deserve. At this point, it isn't even about respect; it's about basic human rights.
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