Statistics Canada released a comprehensive survey today on indigenous peoples living in Yukon with numbers suggesting inequitable housing, education and employment.

Close to one third of indigenous peoples in Yukon lived in homes needing major repairs.

Twenty-nine per cent didn’t finish high school in 2011.

As well, the employment rate was lower than that of the non-indigenous population, according to StatsCan’s Aboriginal Peoples: Fact Sheet for Yukon.

The data come from a survey of Yukon residents who reported identifying with one or more of the following groups: First Nations, Métis, Inuit and/or Treaty Indian or Registered Indian as defined by the Indian Act.

The fact sheet compiles data from both the 2011 National Household Survey and the 2012 Aboriginal Peoples Survey.

There were 7,705 indigenous peoples in the Yukon in 2011, comprising about one quarter of the territory’s population, and one per cent of the total Canadian indigenous population.

Of this group, 6,590 identified as First Nations, 840 as Métis and 175 as Inuit.

More than half of the Yukon’s indigenous residents – 53 per cent – lived in Whitehorse and account for 16 per cent of the city’s population.

Indigenous peoples in Yukon tended to be younger than the rest of the territory.

Four in 10 indigenous peoples were under 25 years of age, compared with 27 per cent of non-indigenous residents in the territory.

Housing

One of the most troubling revelations is that 29 per cent of the Yukon’s indigenous residents lived in substandard housing, compared with 12 per cent of the non-indigenous population.

Language

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission stressed the need to preserve indigenous languages and called upon the federal government to pass an Aboriginal Languages Act to protect this foundational element of indigenous culture.

In its report, the commission quotes a 1994 study by the Assembly of First Nations that says:

“Language is necessary to define and maintain a world view. For this reason, some First Nation elders to this day will say that knowing or learning the native language is basic to any deep understanding of a First Nation way of life, to being a First Nation person.

“For them, a First Nation world is quite simply not possible without its own language.”

The ability to hold a conversation in a First Nations language was lower among Yukon First Nations (16 per cent), than First Nations peoples in the rest of Canada (22 per cent) in 2011.

A First Nations language was the mother tongue (first language learned and still understood) of 14 per cent of Yukon First Nations people.

This is on par with the national average in 2011, when 15 per cent of indigenous peoples reported having an indigenous language as a mother tongue.

The most commonly spoken languages among Yukon First Nations are Kaska (Nahani), Northern Tutchone and Tlingit.

Education

There was a stark difference between indigenous and non-indigenous high school graduation rates in Yukon in 2011.

According to the survey, 29 per cent of indigenous Yukoners didn’t finish high school, whereas just nine per cent of non-indigenous peoples in the territory didn’t get a high school diploma.

Fewer indigenous students in Yukon finished a college or university program than their non-indigenous peers.

Just over half of indigenous Yukoners had a post-secondary degree, diploma or certificate in 2011, compared to almost three quarters of non-indigenous Yukoners.

Employment

Employment rates in 2011 were lower among indigenous Yukoners compared with non-indigenous people in the territory.

About 63 per cent of indigenous Yukoners between 25 and 64 years of age were employed.

The figure for non-indigenous Yukoners in the same age range was 83 per cent.

Neither Yukon MP Larry Bagnell, nor Ruth Massie, the Council of Yukon First Nations’ grand chief, could be reached for comment on the data before press time this afternoon.