Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
24 October 2011
Immigration Changes
the Face of Canada
In 2005, the Multiculturalism Department held a conference with the purpose of looking into the future. Experts were called together to examine how visible minorities might fit into Canada by the year 2017—the 150th anniversary of Confederation
Since the 1980s, the number of visible minorities immigrating to Canada has increased.
The 2001 Census reports that there are almost four million visible minorities living in Canada, or 13.4% of the population. Statistics Canada projects that visible minorities will make up between 19 percent and 23 percent of the population by 2017. At the high end that is more than double the number of visible minorities in Canada 2001.
Ravi Joshi
The population that does not belong to a visible minority group would continue to grow, but at a much slower pace than the visible minority population (an increase of between one percent and seven percent between 2001 and 2017).
Higher Immigrant Percentages
Statistics Canada also projects the country’s immigrant population could number 7,686,000 in 2017. “Immigrants would then account for 22.2% of Canada’s population,” says the agency, “equivalent to the highest level observed in the 20th century, namely the 22 percent observed between 1911 and 1931. Immigrants made up some 18 percent of Canada’s population in 2001.”
By Canada’s 150th birthday the largest group of visible minorities will come from
South Asian (that is the Indian sub-
Roughly half of all visible minority persons will belong to these two groups, numbering between 3.2 million and 4.4 million Canadians. Their numbers will be split almost equally between Chinese and South Asian.
Dept. Of Citizenship and Immigration
The Black population will be between 948,000 and 1,177,000 in 2017, compared with about 671,000 in 2001. As a result, Blacks will remain the third largest visible minority in Canada.
The fastest-
Challenges in Settlement
Communication could become a problem. Many inner-
In the 2001 Census, 5.2 million people (17 percent of the population) identified themselves as having a mother tongue other than Canada’s two official languages. By 2017, there could be as many as nine million Canadians (25 percent of the population) whose mother tongue is neither English nor French.
Visible minorities are already concentrated in Canada’s three biggest cities—Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
This concentration will intensify between now and 2017. By the 150th birthday party, more than half the population of Toronto will likely be from visible minorities. And, that city will be home to more than half of Canada’s South Asians (56 percent).
In the Vancouver metropolitan area, the majority of the population will probably be visible minority persons in 2017. Almost half of those Vancouverites (47 percent) will be of Chinese origin.
Montreal will look a little different. There will be a high proportion of Blacks (27 percent) and Arabs (19 percent) in its visible minority population.
Conference on Visible Minorities
With all these statistics as a background the experts at the Canada 2017 Conference got down to work.
University of British Columbia geographer Daniel Hiebert sees the settlement patterns
of immigrants changing. Half a century ago, European immigrants took up largely blue-
More recent newcomers are tending to settle in suburban enclaves.
An example is the heavy concentration of Chinese immigrants in the suburbs of north-
Mr. Hiebert states that the overall map of visible minorities in 2017 will show something
never seen before in Canadian cities, as approximately half of the metropolitan population
and well over 80 percent of certain suburban areas will be made up of non-
Mr. Hiebert is concerned that these enclaves might lead to the creation of new concentrations of disadvantaged people.
Immigrant Earnings Lower
Krishna Pendakur, an economist at Simon Fraser University, tackled the issue of visible minorities in the workplace. It’s a sad fact that members of visible minorities are paid less than whites with similar age and qualification profiles.
Mr. Pendakur pointed out that the earnings gap between whites and visible minorities was narrowing between 1970 and 1985. Then, the gap started to widen until 1995, when the gap seemed to stabilize.
However, the future might be brighter. Mr. Pendakur says that the earnings gap between visible minorities and whites may be narrowing in those cities where visible minority populations are growing.
Certainly, the federal government could be more helpful in this regard. That’s the opinion of public policy analyst Andrew Cardozo.
He says that, although Canada’s big cities are becoming dramatically more diverse, the face of the federal public service remains overwhelmingly white, especially at the senior levels of government.
Ottawa is currently recruiting visible minorities at the rate of one in ten. This, despite a report in 2000 that recommended a rate of one in five. However, language remains a barrier for visible minorities to employment in the public service and in the private sector. It is a major reason for lower incomes.
Along with lower incomes comes poorer health. This is true whether among whites,
visible minorities, or any other group.
Because visible minorities in Canada are paid less than whites, more of them live in poverty. That means more health issues and lower life expectancies.
Jacqueline Oxman-
They point out that visible minorities work longer hours in lower-
Also, for immigrants, lack of proficiency in English or French can be a barrier to accessing health services.
What’s clear is that many challenges lie ahead for immigrants to Canada. The multi-
Image credits
Lonny Paul
Richard Sambrook
Sources
“Canadian Demographics at a Glance.” Statistics Canada 2008.
“Study: Canada’s Visible Minority Population by 2017.” Statistics Canada, March 22, 2005.
“Poverty by Postal Code.” Canadian Council on Social Development
© Canada and the World, October 2011
All rights reserved
Rathika Sitsabaiesan (left) was born in Sri Lanka. She is the Member of Parliament
for the Toronto-
In the Vancouver suburb of Richmond visible minorities are not a minority any more,accounting for almost 60 percent of the population.
Representation of visible minorities in banking:
18.4%
in communications:
11.6%
in the federal
public service:
7.8%
THE GEOGRAPHY
OF POVERTY
Some troubling trends are showing up among immigrants.
The one of growing poverty is explored in a 2003 Canadian Council on Social Development study, Poverty by Postal Code.
The report covers the period 1981 to 2001.
One conclusion is that “There has been a profound shift in the resident profile of higher poverty neighbourhoods, with ‘poor’ visible minority and immigrant families making up far larger percentages of the total ‘poor’ family population in these neighbourhoods today, than twenty years ago.”
Geographer Daniel Hiebert looks at this development and sees mounting problems.
He fears that if the 1981 to 2001 pattern continues Canada’s cities in 2017 will
become places of ever-
DEFINITION
The term visible minority is defined in Canada’s
This refers to “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples who are non-
This category includes the following groups: Blacks, South Asians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Southeast Asians, Filipinos, Arabs and West Asians, Latin Americans, and Pacific Islanders.