Cautionary notes

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As in any forward-looking exercise, many sources of uncertainty can affect these projections.

One source of uncertainty is the future evolution of components, which is covered in the "Projection assumptions and scenarios" section of this report. In that section, we discussed the uncertainty about the intragenerational ethnic mobility of Aboriginal people, as well as the demographic impact of the recognition of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation, particularly in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in the latter case. Readers are encouraged to refer to this section of the report for more information on this type of source of uncertainty.

The data used for these projections are another source of uncertainty. Several data sources were combined to produce these projections, and the samples for Aboriginal populations are often small. In addition, adjustments were made to 2011 National Household Survey data, particularly in the case of incompletely enumerated Indian reserves and settlements, based on certain assumptions. These data sources and their role in producing these projections are presented in the report entitled Demosim: An Overview of Methods and Data Sources.

Furthermore, the variance associated with some projection parameters, as well as the variance resulting from using multiple random drawing, are also considered sources of uncertainty. For these reasons, and to avoid giving a false impression of accuracy, the results in this report are rounded to the closest thousand.

Lastly, readers should keep in mind that population projections are not predictions. Demographic predictions aim to determine the most probable demographic future, whereas projections are intended to give an idea of what the future would look like should the assumptions and scenarios developed be true. Note that the choices concerning these assumptions were based on the objectives of this report, which are to present a portrait of what the future evolution of Aboriginal populations in Canada could be and to assess the sensitivity of Aboriginal populations to certain key components of population growth.