Elon Musk warns of “population collapse.” Taking the very long view, he is not wrong: if humanity stopped having children, one day there would be none of us left. But on the timelines most of us live in, the lives of this generation and the next, the question is less apocalyptic and more intimate: what kind of future are we preparing for our children, and will our peoples still recognize ourselves in it?
For Indigenous peoples in Canada, the story of population has never been abstract. We were once spoken of in the past tense. Yet in spite of everything, we are still here, and not by accident. Families, aunties, kokums and moshums, communities and ceremonies protected life. As Jody Wilson-Raybould once told me in Parliament, after hearing how many children I had: “You are blessed.” For years, I had heard the opposite, that children are a burden, a career problem, “too many.” But anyone who has ever been on the powwow trail with toddlers knows the truth: children can be difficult, hilarious, generous, exhausting, and they are the reason we keep going.
In our teachings, the Eastern direction is where the sun rises and where the children come from, the first light of a new day. Children are not an afterthought to policy; they are the policy. We begin our prayers with them because they are the future.
The numbers: Canada is at a record low
Canada’s total fertility rate, the average number of children per woman, hit 1.33 in 2022, the lowest on record (replacement is about 2.1). In 2023 it fell again. At the same time, nearly all of Canada’s population growth came from international migration: 97.6% in 2023, with natural increase contributing just 2.4%. Ottawa plans to admit 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024 and half a million in both 2025 and 2026.
These facts sit uneasily together: fewer babies, more newcomers. It is a recipe for rapid demographic change, especially in cities where most Indigenous people now live.
Indigenous fertility: convergence with the rest of Canada
A recent peer-reviewed analysis shows Indigenous fertility has fallen below replacement and is converging with non-Indigenous levels. The Indigenous fertility rate hovered around replacement in 2001–2011, slipped to 1.82 in 2016 and 1.54 in 2021. Within that average, Inuit remain above replacement (about 2.6 in 2021), Status First Nations fell to 1.8, while Métis and non-status First Nations stayed well below replacement (around 1.2).
The gap with non-Indigenous Canadians has narrowed to almost nothing. The direction is unmistakable: Indigenous birth rates are falling.
Will we disappear?
Some fear that low fertility plus high immigration means Indigenous peoples will fade into a footnote. I do not accept that. Existence is not arithmetic; it is governance, land, language, culture and law. Our survival never depended only on birth rates. If it had, the last century might have ended us. We are still here because we insisted on being ourselves, raising children in the circle of kinship, ceremony and responsibility.
Still, low fertility has consequences. We should plan for them, our way, on our terms.
A word about blessings
There is a reason Elders smile when a baby crawls into the circle. Children are the living argument for hope. They are not “monsters.” They are teachers of patience, humility and love. They turn strangers into aunties. They remind leaders why budgets exist. They dance us forward.
Too often, when Indigenous families welcome children, the reaction from outside is cynical: “another mouth to feed,” or worse, “another government file to open.” Instead of suspicion, let us celebrate Indigenous families. Let us help them, not take their children away. Let us remember that every child is a blessing, and every family that raises them in love and culture is a success story.
For generations, governments sought to control our children in order to control our future. Residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, child welfare policies—all were designed to break our nations by breaking our families. But our children are still here, and they remain our future. Protecting and raising them in our ways is how we shape who we are and who we will become.
Canada’s fertility is at record lows. Immigration is at record highs. Indigenous birth rates, except among Inuit, now sit below replacement. Those are the facts. The question is not whether we can “out-breed” change. It is whether we will out-love and out-govern it, making this country and our communities places where raising a child is once again understood as a blessing.
When we pray in the morning, we face East to greet the sun and to honour the children. The day is new. So is the future. And we are still here.
https://www.demographic-research.org/articles/volume/53/6/
1960s–1970s: TFRs for First Nations women were very high, often above 6 children per woman in the 1960s.
By the 1970s, fertility had already begun to decline significantly (part of the global fertility transition), but remained well above the Canadian average.
For example, Ram (2004) estimated Aboriginal fertility around 6.8 in 1966–1971, declining to 4.0 by 1976–1981
1980s–1990s: Continued decline, but still relatively high compared to non-Indigenous women.
By 1996–2001, First Nations women’s TFR was around 2.9, compared with 1.5–1.6 for non-Indigenous women
2000s–2010s:
2001: Status Indian TFR = 2.45
2006: 2.39
2011: 2.55
2016: 2.11
2021: 1.82 (below replacement)
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