Visible Minorities in Canada

We have known for some time that Canada's visible minority population is on the rise, increasing as a percentage of the overall population.  Updated data has been provided by Statistics Canada based on the 1996, 2001 and 2006 censuses:

Of course, the vast majority of immigrants and other visible minority populations cluster in the larger population centres; by 2001, over 35% of the populations of both Toronto and Vancouver were classified as visible minority.

By 2001, almost four million residents of Canada were self-classified (in the census) as belonging to a visible minority group.  Of these:

• 25.8% or 1,029395 were Chinese
• 23.0% or 917,075 were South Asian
• 16.6% of 662,210 were Black
• 7.7% or 308,575 were Filipino
• 7.6% or 303,965 were Arab/West Asian
• 5.4% or 216,975 were Latin American
• 5% of 198,880 were Southeast Asian
• 2.5% or 100,660 were Korean, and
• 1.8% or 73,315 were Japanese.

Source: www.ccsd.ca/factsheets/