Indigenous people in Toronto badly undercounted by census, but experts hopeful for change

Though the Indigenous population in Toronto has historically been drastically undercounted in official Statistics Canada data, community members and advocates say they are hopeful that a shift has begun that will lead to more people feeling comfortable enough to participate in the census and potentially help influence policy changes.

While Statistics Canada says it is committed to working with Indigenous communities to ensure its data is as accurate and relevant as possible, experts say the agency still has a ways to go to properly capture the scope of this population in Toronto.

Sara Wolfe was one of the lead researchers on the Our Health Counts Toronto study, released in 2018, which aimed to provide new insights into the health services needs of urban Indigenous people. 

She told CBC News that census counts can be "inherently flawed" because they aren't designed by the communities they are meant to be counting.

"For a really long time, Indigenous people have been undercounted by [these] formal mechanisms," she said.

"Data informs everything that we do — and if we don't have accurate data, what we make decisions about is going to be flawed."

The 2016 Canadian census placed the Indigenous population in the city at just over 23,000, but Our Health Counts data estimated that number at 65,832.