n. & adj. — predominantly Aboriginal, Politics
the original inhabitants of what is now Canada.
Type: 4. Culturally Significant — The term indigenous, both in its adjectival (see, e.g. the 1884 quotation) and in its nominal uses (see, e.g., the 2007 quotation) is today (2016) to be preferred by some over previously favoured general terms for the First Peoples such as Native or Aboriginal, which have at times been deemed to have colonial overtones. For example, Aboriginal came into Canadian usage only in 1982, in the Constitution Act. It was not previously a word employed by indigenous people when referring to themselves. Although First Nations was adopted by status Indian political groups (as in the name change of the National Indian Brotherhood to the Assembly of First Nations in 1982), this term does not include Inuit or Métis people. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (2007) may have inspired this recent shift to indigenous, as in the recent renaming of the Ministry of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs (see the 2015 quotation).