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Aboriginal People in Manitoba 2000 Chapter 7 : Housing and Mobility

According to the 1996 Census, 53% of Aboriginal residents of Manitoba had moved within the past five years. This is compared to only 39% of all Manitobans. 25% had moved within the past year, compared to 15% of all Manitobans. However, Aboriginal people are not more mobile or migratory than other Manitobans, as is often supposed. Rather, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations demonstrate different patterns of mobility, and there are distinct differences in mobility rates among Aboriginal groups in different locations.

A great deal of this apparent movement consisted of changes of address within the same municipality, particularly movement from one rented accommodation to another in urban settings. We will refer to persons who lived at a different address within the same municipality one or five years previous as “movers,” and those who lived in a different municipality as “migrants.”

The following chart, broken down by group and place of residence in 1996, shows the percentages of Census respondents who had lived in a different municipality five years earlier:

Aboriginal migration (as opposed to moving) rates are not much higher in Manitoba than non-Aboriginal rates, at 16% compared to 13%. Nationally, the overall Aboriginal migration rate is slightly less than that of the total population.⁵ In Manitoba, two significant Aboriginal groups show migration rates below the provincial average: Status Indians on reserve in the North, and Metis in Winnipeg. In both cases, only 9% of respondents lived in a different municipality five years earlier.

Metis migration rates throughout the province are about the same as non-Aboriginal rates. The higher over-all Aboriginal rate is entirely due to the movement of off-reserve Status Indians: in Winnipeg, in the north, and especially in the south outside Winnipeg. On reserve populations, especially in the north, are remarkably stable.

At 21%, Status Indians living in Winnipeg were twice as likely as Metis or non-Aboriginal residents to have moved from outside the city in the past five years. However, because there was a slight net out-migration of Status Indians from Winnipeg in 1991-96, this 20% of Winnipeg’s Status population must be balanced against slightly larger numbers who moved from Winnipeg in 1991-96: to reserves, other off-reserve locations, or out of the province entirely. This is population “churn,” a movement of large numbers of people from one to location to another, but with little net migration trend.

The highest migration rates, for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people alike, are found among residents outside Winnipeg but not on reserve. About 20% of Metis and non-Aboriginal people here had lived in a different municipality five years earlier, but this rises to 25% of Status Indians in the North, and a very high 38% in the South.

Migration rates appear to be inversely correlated to net migration rates. Where migration is highest, off reserve outside Winnipeg especially in the south, there is a net out-migration. Where migration is lowest, on reserve especially in the north, there is a net in-migration. Winnipeg falls between the two extremes. The fact that 38% of Status Indians off reserve in the south lived in a different municipality five years ago, while at the same time, there was a net out-migration of 575 people, indicates that there is migration between southern off reserve localities on a large scale.

Of the 37% of Status Indians living off reserve outside Winnipeg who migrated in the past five years, 13% came from reserves and 6% from Winnipeg. About 15% came from other Manitoba locations, and 3% from outside the province. Of the 20% of Status Indians in Winnipeg who had migrated, 5% came from reserves, 9% from other Manitoba locations, and 6% from out of province. Finally, of 10% of on-reserve Status Indians who had migrated, 4% came from Winnipeg, 4% from other Manitoba locations, and 2% from other reserves or out of province.