Despite the widely held belief that income discrepancies between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadian are founded in systemic discrimination, a new report from the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy suggests otherwise.

Matthew Lau with the Foundation says the federal and provincial governments continue to claim that systemic racism has much to do with poor economic outcomes among the Indigenous population, and a lot of their spending and policies is premised on this claim.

“So, Indigenous workers, their median income is about 15 or 16 per cent lower than for non-Indigenous workers, but if you look at some factors…those seem to explain most of the disparities that suggest that systemic racism or similar factors are not really the drivers of income disparities.”

These factors include the number of hours worked, the city they live in, and the level of education they’ve obtained.

“For example, when we look at differences in income by educational attainment, we see that among the Canadian workers with a bachelor’s degree, Indigenous workers on average actually earn a little bit more than non-Indigenous workers. Among those with a high school diploma, they earn a little bit less.” He explains that these factors create balance and broadly similar incomes, on average.

He adds that, interestingly, the study also showed that just over one third of Indigenous workers are located in larger cities, compared to over 50 per cent of nonindigenous workers, which may also play a role in these pay discrepancies.

Lau says the systemic racism claim impacts public policy heavily, but according to this data, isn’t necessarily true.