The Aboriginal population of both the town and MD of Bonnyville is nearly triple what’s seen across Canada.
An estimated 710 people in the town identified as Aboriginal in the 2016 census, which was just over 13 per cent of the town’s population.Of Bonnyville’s Aboriginal community, 61 per cent identified as Métis and 39 per cent as First Nations or North American Indian. The town also had 300 residents with Registered or Treaty Indian status.
Indigenous people make up an even higher percentage of the MD of Bonnyville, with 2,100 residents identifying as such for roughly 15 per cent of the population. 71 per cent were Métis, 25 per cent were First Nations, and another four percent identified as Inuit.
Overall, Indigenous peoples make up about 14 percent of the town and MD. Only 25 per cent of households received the long-form census, so the totals have been estimated by Statistics Canada.
The census data shows Canada’s Indigenous population is growing four times faster than rest of country. Nearly 1.7 million people identified as Aboriginal in 2016, which is a 4.9 per cent share of the total population and a 42.5 per cent increase since 2006.
The population was largely concentrated in the western provinces, with 14 per cent in Alberta. While Ontario held one-fifth of the country’s Métis population, Alberta also had the largest in western Canada, making up 19.5 per cent of the total overall.
Statistics Canada also found the Aboriginal population is young, with the average age 32.1 year old in 2016. That’s almost a decade younger than the non-Aboriginal population at 40.9 years old. Just over one-third of Aboriginal children aged 0 to 4 years lived with a lone parent, and about one in six lived with at least one grandparent.