Canada’s immigrant population contributes the most to the country for the last 150 years.
Statistics Canada recently revealed the results of the 2021 census. The census report comprises crucial information about immigration and ethnocultural diversity in the country in the form of statistics. This report displays the latest information from Statistics Canada about Canada’s immigrant population.
Statistics Canada released the previous update in October 2017. This government agency usually updates the compulsory census every five years. This agency works by collecting data during surveys and later analyzes the data and shares it with the public.
The Canada census aims to share information about individuals and Canadian housing units based on the characteristics, including demography, economics, and society, with the government and Canadian population. Additionally, the census displays the statistics on the number of individuals residing in a household, the languages they speak, their ethnicity, educational qualification, and salary. Therefore, this report significantly helps the Canadian government understand the requirements of Canadians and permanent residents in the country. Apart from this, the government also gets a better understanding of distributing the funds to appropriate initiatives.
However, today’s data reveals the everyday routine and life of the immigrant population in Canada.
Increased number of foreign-born Canadians
Today’s report refers to the “Portrait of Immigration to Canada.” Interestingly, this report also revealed that more than 23 percent of the population in Canada is either an immigrant or a Canadian permanent resident.
Canada was established in 1867, and this percentage accounts for the largest share of the immigrant population. The percentage implied 8.3 million immigrants in 2021. According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s immigrant population will likely rise to 34 percent by 2041.
However, the increased number of immigrants is due to Canada’s Immigration Levels Plan, which keeps expanding the target levels for inviting a specific number of immigrants. More than 1.3 million permanent residents arrived in the country between 2016 and 2021. Most newcomers, or say 50 percent of them, emerged in Canada recently under the economic class. The number of such newcomers accounts for 748,120 newcomers.
Additionally, more than one-third of immigrants, at least 36.6 percent, stayed in Canada as workers or students with their permits before acquiring permanent residency status. Many of them were also Asylum claimants.
Canada initially targeted 300,000 new permanent residents in the country in 2016. Canada also seeks to welcome 432,000 newcomers toward the latter part of 2022 and more than 450,000 toward the end of 2024. However, these targets will remain constant or even increase according to the latest Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2025.
Canada’s immigrant population- top sources
The acute labor shortage in Canada resulted in increased immigration targets for more than five years. Almost a quarter of the Canadian population will not be a part of the workforce by 2030. The labor shortage increased drastically due to a steady rise in deaths and reduced fertility rates in Canada.
According to Statistics Canada, the recent newcomers belong to a younger age group compared to the general population. This age structure of newcomers helps in reducing the Canadian labor shortage.
Reportedly, the Canadian workforce grew with the help of 80 percent of Canada’s immigrant population between 216 and 2021.
According to Canadian history, more than half of the immigrants emerged from Europe. However, a majority of the new immigrants came from Asia. The number of immigrants from Asia has drastically increased over the last fifty years.
As per reports, the top source of new immigrants coming to Canada in Asia, while newcomers from Africa are also increasing immensely. Sixty-two percent of people immigrating to Canada belonged to Asia, of which 18.6 percent came from India. Additionally, 11.4 percent came from the Philippines, with China accounting for 8.9 percent. Surprisingly, India grabbed the first position in terms of Canada’s immigrants.
Canada experienced such an increase in the percentage of newcomers in 1971, with 20.9 percent of immigrants born in the U.K. Presently, Europeans only contribute to the minor immigrant population in Canada, meaning only one in ten newcomers to Canada.
New immigrants belong to the prime working age category
The number of Canadians who will soon meet retirement age is increasing tremendously. The estimated figure of such immigrants is 1 in 5 Canadians. As expected, Canada isn’t responsible for reducing the aging process in Canada but can undoubtedly increase the Canadian workforce with younger workers. Looking at the statistics of new immigrants, around 10.6 percent belonged to a younger age group with either youth or young adults. Moreover, the young generation aged between 15 and 24. This data is relevant between 216 and 2021. Approximately 17.1 percent of new immigrants arriving were children who belonged to an age group below 15 years.
In 2011, second-generation Canadians, children below 15 years, accounted for 26.7 percent. Conversely, in 2021, the number of younger children (having one immigrant parent) increased to 31.5 percent 2021.
The percentage of immigrants working in Canada is far more than before the pandemic broke out. New immigrants have an increased employment rate, and this increased by up to two percent since 2016. However, the population in Canada faced a reduced employment rate of 2 percent.
Canada’s immigrant population settles outside Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver
Canada’s recent immigrant population preferred to settle in the major metropolitan areas comprising 100,000 residents. The percentage of such recent immigrants accounts for 92.2 percent in 2021. However, the Canada-born population finds the above figure higher than 67.7 percent. Census Metropolitan Areas comprise immigrant communities such as Toronto, with 46.6 percent of the population as immigrants only.
Previously too Canada’s major cities welcomed the maximum population such as 29.5 percent in Toronto, 12.2 percent in Montreal, and 11.7 percent in Vancouver. These cities have been welcoming new immigrants over the past fifty years and even welcomed the recent ones in 2021.
Contrarily, the share settling in the three cities witnessed a reduction from 56 percent in 2016 to 53.4 percent in 2021. Additionally, Montreal observed a major reduction from 14.8 percent in 2016 to 12.2 percent in 2021.
Other statistics data of immigrant population- Canadian provinces
Ottawa Gatineau in Canada depicted a recent increase in the immigrant population from 3.1 percent in 2016 to 4.4 percent in 2021. Besides this, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo also experienced increased growth in newcomers from 1.2 percent in 2016 to 2.1 percent in 2021. This was also the largest center in Canada for the technology and information industry.
An increased number of immigrants are also preferring to settle in PEI, New Brunswick province, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia. These are all the Atlantic provinces of Canada.
According to official data, the immigrant population in Atlantic provinces increased at least three times, that is, from 1.2 percent to 3.5 percent. The largest number of increased immigrants emerged from Nova Scotia from 0.6 to 1.6 percent. Additionally, in New Brunswick, the percentage increased from 0.4 percent to 1.2 percent. PEI witnessed a higher percentage from 0.1 percent to 0.4 percent of new immigrants. The percentage of new immigrants increased from 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent in Newfoundland and Labrador. Approximately 10,000 newcomers emerged in the Atlantic provinces of Canada to bridge the labor shortage. Most of these immigrants prolonged their stay in these provinces after one year. Interestingly, Vancouver comprises the second-highest immigrant population in Canada at 41.8 percent. 50 percent of this came from Richmond and Burnaby.
Canada consists of 23.0 percent of the immigrant population, more than the expected national average. It Calgary immigrants of 31.5 percent, Abbotsford Mission of 26.1 percent, Edmonton with 26.0 percent, Hamilton with 25.6 percent, Montreal with 24.3 percent, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Winnipeg with 25.4 percent, and Windsor with 23.3 percent.
Canada’s language diversity
According to the 2021 census, Canada comprised 450 mother tongues. Overall, the Canadian immigrant population doesn’t have English or French as their mother tongue. Those immigrants who emerged in Canada without having any official language spoke Arabic (10 %), Mandarin (7.9 %), Tagalog (8.4 %), and Punjabi, only 6.5 percent.
One in four newcomers in Canada spoke English as their first language and they came from countries such as India, the Philippines, and the U.S.
Only 6.5 percent of the recent immigrant population spoke French as their native language. More than 30 percent of them belonged to France, 11.5 percent from Cameroon, 5.8 percent from Algeria, 5.7 percent from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and 8.4 percent from Côte d’Ivoire.
Recent immigrants
Even though maximum newcomers don’t have English or French as their first language, 92.7 percent of the recent newcomers, that is, 1.3 million immigrants, can speak strike a conversation in either French or English language. Two-thirds of the new immigrant population also speak English or French at their homes. However, most of them converse regularly in the English language.
Those immigrants who settled in the country before 1980 comprised 76.4 percent of immigrants who conversed in English or French at their homes.
