Dr. Leroux’s 13M Indigenous People in Canada
Is an associate professor making up numbers for attention?
(Updated Feb 1st 2022 and again on Feb 8th: Substantial changes were made to reflect a longer history of Darryl’s estimate than previously thought. Updated Sept 21st 2022: Darryl Leroux deleted his twitter account Sept 21st 2022, the day Stats Canada released 2021 Metis Census numbers. Tweets have been replaced with screenshots via Web Archive.)
Darryl Leroux wont provide a source for his claim of “13 million people in Canada today who are French-Canadian and who have some minimal amount of Indigenous ancestry.”
He won’t provide a source of how a third of all Canadians have Indigenous ancestry… probably because he made it up.
This number has fluctuated wildly between 4 and 13 million in the 40 plus times he’s mentioned it between 2016 and now.
It seems to have began after the Daniels Supreme Court decision at an estimate of 10 million. Two years later, the number dropped to 8 million.
In November 2018 Aboriginal People’s Television Network quoted Leroux saying there could be “nine million new Indigenous people in Canada immediately” if genealogy was all that was required.
Two months later, that number went down to 6 million. Follow-up tweets claimed the 2016 Canadian Census as being the source of 8 million French-decedents in Canada. However, the 2016 Canadian Census only says 4.7 million of French origin putting a real estimate slightly over 3 million.
Who needs evidence when you’re playing Numberwang!
Darryl Leroux’s 2019 Book
Leroux wrote that the “significant majority” of 10 million French descendants in Canada have Indigenous ancestry. The number featured prominently on page 2 of the book published by University of Manitoba Press.
The book has no citation because ‘choosing a number that sounds big’ and then citing your brain might have been too easy to discredit.
Inexplicably, even with a book, the estimate dropped to a range of numbers: 4–8 million. A number that only got 3 retweets. This estimate was short-lived.
The number went back up to 8-10 million and stayed there for about a year.
He finally struck gold in late 2019 with the public shaming of Michelle Latimer. 136 retweets.
As Michelle’s star fell; Leroux’s rose. He appeared in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary. In it he mentioned the 8–10 million number and mocked the identities of Métis in Quebec by claiming that if he wanted to claim to be an extra-terrestrial he could.
When Latimer finally refuted CBC’s claims, saying she has identified consistently and she has family in Kitigan Zibi, Leroux hit back with his fabricated 10 million number. 61 retweets.
By 2021, Leroux was just saying “upwards of 10 million new “Indigenous” people in Canada and 2–3 million in U.S.” with 244 retweets.
Darryl Leroux’s Response to Criticism
When he was made aware of the inconsistencies, rather than providing a source he came up with a story about me. He said I “worked to exonerate a white cop who shot a Black man in the back 🤨”[Archived link] despite there being a Oscar-shortlisted documentary about the opposite. I did work to exonerate a pipeline protestor who was aggressively arrested by police. Maybe he confused the two?
Why would Leroux fact check? Fact-checking is lame and doesn’t score internet points.
Just a reminder, you can find a Google Doc documenting the 40 plus instances Darryl Leroux has touted his extra-terrestrial stats. Below is a scatter-plot showing his incredible academic rigor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Voshart is a Metis/Dutch designer. He has 5–8 million Indigenous people hiding in his basement. You can find him frothing from the mouth on Twitter.
