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For the following two variables, only two assumptions are considered. For the
employment rate gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians at a given level
of educational attainment, we assume that either:
(i) The employment rate for Aboriginal Canadians at a given level of educational
attainment remains at its 2001 level over the 2001-2017 period. By 2017, the
2001 employment rate gap remains.
(ii) The employment rate for Aboriginal Canadians at a given level of educational
attainment reaches the 2001 level of non-Aboriginals by 2017. By 2017, the 2001
employment rate gap is eliminated.
Similarly, for the employment income gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians at
a given level of educational attainment, we assume that either:
(i) Aboriginal employment income at any given level of educational attainment
grows at the same rate as that of other Canadians, that is 25.5 per cent over the
2001-2017 period. By 2017, the 2001 employment income gap remains.
(ii) Aboriginal employment income at a given level of educational attainment reaches
the same level as that of non-Aboriginal Canadians by 2017. By 2017, the
employment income gap is closed.
To obtain the GDP associated with Aboriginal Canadians, we multiply their total
employment income by two, which reflects the fact that labour share in GDP is about 50 per
cent. The scenario which maximizes the potential contribution of Aboriginal Canadians to the
Canadian economy is the one where Aboriginal Canadians reach parity with non-Aboriginal
Canadians for educational attainment, employment rate and average income in a given
educational attainment group by 2017. For this scenario to be realized, however, older
Aboriginal Canadians would have to go back to school in order to reach the level of educational
attainment of their non-Aboriginal counterparts in 2001, which is unlikely. In this context, the
scenario under which only half of the educational gap is eliminated is more realistic for the short
period of time covered by these projections.
In the scenario maximizing the potential contribution of Aboriginal Canadians, annual
average growth rate of the Canadian GDP is projected to be 0.081 percentage points higher than
the base scenario in which no improvement is observed. If only half the 2001 educational gap
was eliminated but 2001 labour market gaps (employment rate and employment income) at a
given level of educational attainment were eliminated by 2017, the annual additional increase in
GDP growth over the base scenario would be 0.064 percentage points. Since the Aboriginal
population is projected to represent 4.0 per cent of the population in 2017, these results are
significant.
In fact, if we add up the annual contributions to GDP over the 16 years period, and
assuming that the rate of growth remains constant over the period, the aggregate additional GDP