More than a third of Canadians say country belongs to Indigenous people: poll

Another 43 per cent of Canadians who responded don't agree with that sentiment, while 19 per cent of respondents say they don't know.

As people across the country gather for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a new poll suggests Canadians are divided about whether the country belongs primarily to Indigenous Peoples.

The Leger poll of 1,627 people conducted between Aug. 29 and 31 for the Association for Canadian Studies suggests 38 per cent of Canadians believe Canada belongs “first and foremost” to Indigenous Peoples.

Another 43 per cent of Canadians who responded don’t agree with that sentiment, while 19 per cent of respondents say they don’t know.

The poll, which was conducted online and can’t be assigned a margin of error, suggests that younger Canadians aged 18 to 24 are far more likely to think the country belongs to Indigenous peoples, at 58 per cent, compared with Canadians aged 65 and older, at 24 per cent.

The poll suggests people born outside of Canada are more likely to say the country belongs to Indigenous people, at 50 per cent, than people born in Canada, at 36 per cent.

Almost three quarters of a small sample of 41 respondents who identify as Indigenous say Canada belongs first and foremost to Indigenous peoples, compared to 37 per cent of non-Indigenous respondents.

Forty-six per cent of Ontarians who answered the poll say Canada belongs first and foremost to Indigenous Peoples, compared to around a third of people in Quebec, B.C. and the Prairie provinces.

Veldon Coburn, associate professor and faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University, said the survey confirms regional and ideological divisions consistent with past research.