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South Asian immigration on rise |
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The faster growth of the South Asian immigrant population between now
and 2017 may put it on equal terms with the Chinese,
currently the biggest visible minority group, says Statistics Canada.
Regardless of the scenario, roughly one-half of all visible minorities
in Canada would belong to two groups by 2017: South Asian or Chinese.
The StatCan projections show that the population of each group would be
around 1.8 million.
In 2001, Chinese and South Asians were already the largest visible
minority groups in Canada, but their share of the total population
differed.
According to the 2001 Census, 1,029,000 individuals identified
themselves as Chinese, and they accounted for 26% of the visible
minority population. In comparison, the 917,000 South Asians
represented 23% of the visible minority population.
Projections show that the Black population would remain the third
largest visible minority. It would reach around 1.0 million in 2017,
compared with about 662,000 in the 2001 Census.
The visible minority groups that would grow fastest between now
and 2017 are the West Asian, Korean and Arab groups. Under most of the
projection scenarios, the population of each group would more than
double.
The Filipino population, estimated at 309,000 in the 2001 Census, would
grow to around 540,000 by 2017, topping the half-million mark in four
of the five scenarios.
The number of people whose mother tongue is neither English nor French
would reach 7.6 million by 2017, or 22% of the total population. That
number was around 5.2 million in the 2001 Census, or 18% of the
population.
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Newsfile 