Changing faces

	Canada’s diverse range of ethnic origins Photo: Comstock

Canada is a multicultural society whose ethno-cultural composition has been shaped over time by different waves of immigrants and their descendents, as well as by the Aboriginal peoples of the country. Each new wave of immigrants has added to its diversity.

Canada welcomed more than 13.4 million immigrants during the past century, the largest number having arrived during the 1990s. According to the 2001 Census, 18.4% of the population was born outside Canada, the highest proportion in 70 years.

As well, the sources of immigrants to Canada have changed in recent decades, with increasing numbers coming from non-European countries. These immigrants and their children are adding to the ethno-cultural make-up of Canada’s population, making it one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world.

More than 200 different ethnic origins were reported in the 2001 Census question on ethnic ancestry. Ethnic origin, as defined in the census, refers to the ethnic or cultural group(s) to which an individual's ancestors belonged. The changing sources of immigrants to Canada have resulted in emerging new ethnic origins from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Central and South America.

In the 2001 Census, 39% of the total population reported Canadian as their ethnic origin, either alone or in combination with other origins, while 23% gave Canadian as their only ethnic origin. Whether they were reported alone or in combination with other origins the most frequent ethnic origins in 2001, after Canadian (11.7 million), were English (6 million) and French (4.7 million), Scottish (4.2 million) and Irish (3.8 million).

The proportion of visible minorities has increased steadily over the past 20 years. Visible minorities are defined by the Employment Equity Act as "persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." In 1981, 1.1 million visible minorities accounted for 5% of the total population; by 2001, 4.0 million accounted for 13%. Their distribution across Canada is quite varied, from a low of less than 1% in Newfoundland and Labrador to a high of nearly 22% in British Columbia. In Ontario, 19% of the population are visible minorities, followed by Alberta at 11%, Manitoba at 8% and Quebec at 7%.

Proportions also varied widely among metropolitan areas. In the Atlantic region, only Halifax, at 7%, had a sizable visible minority population, most of whom were black people. Montreal was the only metropolitan area with a large visible minority population in Quebec, at 14%, with the largest groups being Blacks and Arabs/West Asians. Toronto had the largest visible minority population in Canada at 37%, with the largest groups being South Asians, Chinese and Blacks. Minorities made up 14% of the population in the Ottawa–Hull area, with Blacks the largest group, followed by Chinese, Arabs/West Asians, and South Asians.

In Western Canada, Chinese people were the largest minority group in all but two census metropolitan areas. Filipinos were by far the most in number for Winnipeg, and they were mostly South Asian in Abbotsford. Visible minorities accounted for about 5% of all persons in Regina, almost 6% in Saskatoon, 15% in Edmonton and about 18% in Calgary. Vancouver had the second largest minority population in the country at 37%. In fact, in 2001, half of the visible minority population in Vancouver were Chinese and one-third of all Chinese Canadians lived in that metropolitan area. Asians from the Indian subcontinent were the next largest minority group in Vancouver, but the numbers of Filipinos, Koreans, Southeast Asians and Japanese were also significant.