Participate in Aboriginal Peoples Survey, Inuit orgs urge

Statistics Canada plans to contact 48,000 Inuit, First Nations and Métis across Canada to participate in the Aboriginal Peoples Survey, which gets underway this month. (HANDOUT IMAGE)

If you’re asked to participate Aboriginal Peoples Survey, please do.

That’s the message from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

The Aboriginal Peoples Survey is a national, federally-funded survey of Inuit, First Nations and Métis people in Canada which takes place every five years.

And it provides valuable information on the social and economic conditions of Canadian Indigenous peoples, which governments and organizations used to develop policies and programs.

The information collected will also help find ways to increase Inuit employment in government, as required by Article 23 of the Nunavut Agreement, NTI said.

NTI, along with the Government of Nunavut and Employment and Social Development Canada, helped develop a Nunavut-specific supplement to the survey, NTI said in a recent release.

That Nunavut-specific part of the survey is a requirement of the lawsuit settlement agreement that NTI and Ottawa signed in May 2015, and must use a sample size of 7,500 people with the objective of getting 5,675 respondents.

“The module will be collected via in-person interviews as well as new survey questions on availability, interest and level of preparedness of Nunavut Inuit for government employment in the Nunavut settlement area,” a document attached to the May 2015 settlement agreement said.

That data, with data from other sources, is to be folded into a Nunavut Inuit Labour Force Analysis that the federal government is required to produce under the May 2015 settlement agreement.

That NILFA will guide decision-makers in the use of the $175 million training fund that Ottawa gave NTI under their deal.

The theme of the 2017 survey is Inuit participation in the economy, although information on such issues as health, language, income and housing will also be collected.

Starting this month, until June, Statistics Canada employees will conduct interviews in Nunavut communities, in Inuktut and English.

If you’re an Inuk, years of age or older, enrolled in the Nunavut Agreement and have responded to the 2016 Census, you may be selected to participate. The survey will take about an hour of your time.

You can learn more the survey here.