As far back as 1978, governments were estimating that at least 15% of Canadians have some Indian, Inuit, or Metis ancestors. For reasons that will eventually be discussed elsewhere on this site, only 1 million Candians identified with their Aboriginal ancestry in the last (1991) census.
Obviously, there are literally millions of Canadians who are not sure whether they have Aboriginal ancestry or not. Even those who definitely know are confused about what, if anything, they should do about that fact. Thousands of Indian children were adopted out to white families and now have children of their own who are wondering about their ancestors. Still other thousands have married non-Aborignal peoples of various races and are not sure how their chilren should be identified. Thousands of others have heard veiled references from relatives about an Indian or Metis grandmother and great-grandfather.
Whether or not all of these people could (or should) identify as Metis (or Indians or Inuit) depends on a number of factors and related circumstances. The process of Metissage (mixing of Indian and non-Indian races) played a much larger role in Canadian history than most historians are prepared to admit. Outside of Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City, there were many fewer child-bearing white women in other parts of Canada prior to Confederation than most Canadians think. There were hundreds of thousands of children being born, but their mothers in most cases, and their fathers in other cases were either Indian, Inuit, or already of mixed blood.
The bottom line is, if you had ancestors living outside of the major
centres listed above in Canada at the time of Confederation (1867), chances
are very high that you have some Aboriginal ancestry.
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