Half of GTA foreign-born
Dec 04, 2007 09:18 AM
THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA – The Toronto region has experienced substantial growth in its immigrant population over the last five years, according to new census data released Tuesday.
Statistics Canada released information from the 2006 census which gives a snapshot of people who came from other countries to live here. It reveals most people moving to Canada are generally flocking to large urban centres, especially Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Demographic experts have predicted that Canada’s population growth will be almost entirely dependent on immigration by 2030 and communities that don’t attract new Canadians may see steady declines in population.
A shrinking population can have a host of economic and social consequences, including a fragile local economy starved for workers that, in turn, discourages much-needed investment. Business and school closures can result, and as the declining population ages the delivery of social services such as health care becomes strained.
Some communities find it difficult to attract immigrants because new Canadians tend to choose large cities where their families have already settled and where they can access the services they will need.
The latest census stats show that immigrants make up 45.7 per cent of the Toronto area. Five years earlier, immigrants represented 43.7 per cent of the population. In terms of recent immigration, the number of immigrants who lived in the region increased to 2,320,160 from 2,032,960 between 2001 and 2006.
During the same five-year period since the 2001 census, the overall population of Toronto region increased by 9.2 per cent – compared to a provincial gain of 6.6 per cent and a national growth rate of 5.4 per cent.
The immigration figures shows that about one out of every five Canadians was born in another country. In the Toronto region the ratio is almost one out of every two, while for Ontario, it’s more than one out of every four.
The national figures are skewed by the concentration of immigrants in the metropolitan regions of Toronto, Vancouver (39.6 per cent) and Montreal (20.6).
In terms of the country of origin for foreign-born people in the Toronto area, the highest proportion came from India, followed by China and then Italy.
Statistics Canada also released data Tuesday on languages spoken by Canadians, including those born here and those who came from other countries.
English remains the dominant language in Toronto region. It is the mother tongue – the first language learned – by 54.1 per cent of the population. Canada’s other official language, French, is the mother tongue of 1.2 per cent of people in the community.
(Census metropolitan areas do not conform to established municipal boundaries. Statistics Canada determines its own geographic definition of a metropolitan area with a population of at least 100,000, but it also includes surrounding urban and rural communities based on analysis of commuting patterns and other factors. Looking at metropolitan areas this way takes in to account the growing impact of suburban areas on Canada’s largest cities.)
In terms of what Statistics Canada refers to as “non-official” languages, Chinese (all dialects) was the first language of 8.1 per cent, followed by Italian (3.7) and Panjabi (Punjabi) (2.6).
The census is conducted every five years by Statistics Canada and is based on information filled out by Canadians on May 16, 2006. The data released Tuesday on immigration and language follows information released earlier this year on overall population growth, families, as well as the age and sex breakdowns of the population.
Future census information to be released over the coming months will give demographic breakdowns of a variety of topics, including the aboriginal population, visible minorities, labour force activity and education.
1 in 5 foreign-born, says StatsCan
Last Updated: Tuesday, December 4, 2007 | 9:17 AM ET
The Canadian Press
Newly released census numbers show a surge in immigration, with one in five people in Canada now foreign-born.
In its report released Tuesday, Statistics Canada says the proportion of foreign-born people from Asian and Middle Eastern countries has outstripped those of European heritage.
Between 2001 and last year, Canada’s foreign-born population increased by 13.6 per cent — four times faster than the overall population.
The census estimates 1.1 million immigrants came to Canada during that period.
Other highlights include:
-More than 60 per cent of immigrants live in the large urban centres of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver; only about five per cent live in rural parts of Canada.
-Most of the recent newcomers to Canada are from Asia — 58 per cent when those from the Middle East are included. Europeans, the dominant immigrant group for most of the 20th century, represented only 16 per cent of those who moved to Canada from 2001-06.
-Australia (22 per cent) is the only Western country with a higher proportion of immigrants than Canada (19.8 per cent). In the United States, where immigration provokes a major political debate, it’s 12.5 per cent.
-About 20 per cent of the population reports a mother tongue (their first language learned) of neither French nor English.
-More than one million people in Canada declared one of the Chinese dialects as a first language. In some suburbs around Toronto and Vancouver, those with English as a mother tongue are now the minority compared with all other languages spoken.
Newcomers put strain on cities
Dec 04, 2007 08:47 AM
Colin Perkel
THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO – Canada’s three largest cities are struggling to cope with a flood of newcomers primarily from China, India, the Philippines and Pakistan as immigration approaches levels not seen since the end of the “Great Migration.”
Statistics Canada said Tuesday that 69 per cent of recent immigrants to Canada resided in the “magnet” or “gateway” cities of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver – dubbed MTV – in 2006. That’s down from 73 per cent in 2001 and 74 per cent in 1996.
Still, 97 per cent of all immigrants in the last five years ended up in large urban areas.
The flood of immigrants has resulted in the kind of vibrant, diversification celebrated as the essence of Canadian multiculturalism. But it has also created a nation of two solitudes: declining rural populations at the same time as bulging big cities struggle to provide services newcomers rely on.
Despite the enormous social, political and economic ramifications of immigration – forecast to be the single source of population growth in Canada within 30 years – public and political discourse on the subject seems muted.
“Canadians, according to surveys, think that there may be some major problems with immigration but they’re constantly told that we need it anyway,” said Martin Collacott, a former Canadian ambassador and now senior fellow with the Fraser Institute in Vancouver.
“You don’t really question immigration because you’ll be a racist if you do.”
Debatable policy issues include the number of immigrants Canada accepts along with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent each year helping them settle. There are also the issues of what kind of immigrant is allowed to enter – family class or skilled, for example, as well as where they should settle.
For politicians competing for the “ethnic” vote in a country built on immigrants, those are thorny questions some would rather leave untouched.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the federal government floated the idea of directing new arrivals to the hinterland to address the issues of stressed urban services, immigrant concentration and rural depopulation.
The idea died a quiet death and has since been replaced by federal and provincial efforts to “encourage” immigrants to settle in less-trafficked centres.
In 2006, only five per cent of the immigrant population lived in a rural area, Statistics Canada reported.
One innovation, said Tim Vail, spokesman for federal Immigration Minister Diane Finley, was the removal of a federal cap on how many newcomers provinces can accept, which has allowed smaller provinces to be more aggressive in recruiting immigrants on their own terms.
Setting aside constitutional concerns, experts say forcing immigrants to settle outside large urban centres simply doesn’t work.
“It’s not valuable. It’s very clear: even if people say they’re going to live in Lethbridge, Alta., or Saskatchewan, they pull up eventually and they move to where they think the jobs and where the families are,” said Monica Boyd, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto who studied the subject.
“You cannot keep people in place very long if in fact they perceive the opportunities elsewhere.”
Quebec, which has enjoyed a large amount of autonomy in selecting its immigrants for the past 16 years, recorded its highest population of foreign-born in 2006 at 11.5 per cent of the population.
The province shifted to a more regionalized strategy about two years ago to ensure immigrants “establish themselves everywhere,” said Yolande James, Quebec’s immigration minister.
The approach relies on promoting the province’s regions abroad and closely matching immigrant skills to available jobs on the premise that a happily employed newcomer is more likely to stay in place.
The strategy, which begins during the selection interview abroad, is starting to bear fruit.
The census shows that while 87 per cent of Quebec’s foreign-born residents lived in Montreal there was also an increase in the number of immigrants settling in other areas, including Quebec City, Ottawa-Gatineau and Sherbrooke.
Amy Casipullai, policy co-ordinator of Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, said immigration is no panacea for rural depopulation.
“If Canada doesn’t deal with the problem of flight from small towns for the Canadian-born population, then how are you going to convince immigrants that this is actually a worthwhile move for them?” Casipullai said.
Charles Cirtwill, acting president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, said smaller provinces should focus efforts on growing their existing immigrant bases.
“For example, here in Halifax we have a lot of Middle Eastern immigrants, so why are we spending so much time trying to draw a Chinese community here when we’ve already got a basis to build on?” Cirtwill said.
Big cities complain they are left on the hook for providing the vital services that help immigrants feel at home – social housing; libraries; community, recreation and public-health programs and schools.
“We don’t get a nickel from the federal government to support the kind of services that actually help people settle successfully in this city,” said Toronto Mayor David Miller, where 46 per cent of the city’s population was foreign-born in 2006.
“(But) if we don’t properly support newcomers . . . there can well be problems.”
The complaint is similar in Vancouver.
“We lack the resources most of the time to be really proactive,” said Baldwin Wong, a social planner with the city of Vancouver, where 40 per cent of all residents were born abroad and have a mother tongue other than English or French.
“We do have, for example, four multilingual phone lines – but that’s only four language groups that we can address rather than the 60 or 70 different types of languages that are spoken in Vancouver schools.”
Ontario Immigration Minister Michael Chan said the province, which gets half the country’s immigrants, spent about $160 million on services for newcomers last year although he complains that Ottawa has shortchanged the province in promised support.
Where in the province immigrants go is a “personal” choice, Chan said.
The census shows 69 per cent of Ontario’s foreign-born chose the Toronto area, with suburbs such as Brampton, Mississauga picking up an increasing amount of immigrants.
Experts say the bright lights of the metropolis are an irresistible lure for newcomers for two main reasons: economic diversity and social networks.
Newcomers to Montreal also cited language while those settling in Vancouver noted the climate, the census showed.
Many big-city schools, which are the point of entry into Canadian society for most immigrant children, are staggering under the weight of large numbers of students needing language training and other specialized guidance.
Marcel Tremblay, an executive member of Montreal’s council, said the city wants immigrants to help bulk up its population, but the $1.5 million it gets from the province for services for newcomers is “peanuts.”
John Campey, executive director of the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto, said governments have made attracting immigrants a priority, but sadly not the money to support them.
“Investing in new arrivals in Canada has not been at the top of their list.”
Ontario net population loser to other provinces
Dec 04, 2007 09:59 AM
THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA – New census information released Tuesday shows more people moved away from Ontario to other parts of Canada than relocated to the province during the last five years.
Statistics Canada released new census data Tuesday on what it calls interprovincial mobility – that is, how many people moved within Canada between provinces and territories.
In the years between the 2001 and 2006 census, Ontario had a net loss of 26,920 people when it came to interprovincial migration: 185,785 moved to Ontario and 212,705 moved away to another province or territory.
During the same time period, Ontario’s overall population actually grew by 6.6 per cent – an increase of 750,000 people. But most of that gain came from immigration. While many new Canadians are choosing Ontario, the census shows a lot of established Ontarians are moving elsewhere in Canada.
The No. 1 location where Ontarians moved to was British Columbia – with 56,035 moving there from 2001-06. The next popular destination was Alberta (49,455 people), followed by Quebec (44,535).
More people from Quebec moved to Ontario than from any other province or territory – 52,770 in the five-year period – followed by British Columbia (38,120) and Alberta (29,800).
The new data also gives details about people’s place of residence one year prior to census day in May of 2006. A total of 56,835 moved to Ontario in that one-year period – more from Quebec than any other province or territory. Ontario lost 75,380 people to other provinces during the year, with Alberta being the province chosen by most people.
In June, Statistics Canada will release further data that breaks down the moving patterns of Canadians between local cities and communities.
{table} INTERPROVINCIAL MOBILITY{tfi} 2001-2006 {mspc} 2005-2006
{table} Moved to Ontario{tfi} 185,785 {mspc} 56,835
{table} Moved from Ontario{tfi} 212,705 {mspc} 75,380
{table} Net gain/loss Ontario{tfi} -26,920 {mspc} -18,545
Move to:
{table} British Columbia{tfi} 56,035 {mspc} 18,310
{table} Alberta{tfi} 49,455 {mspc} 23,165
{table} Quebec{tfi} 44,535 {mspc} 13,505
{table} Nova Scotia{tfi} 19,245 {mspc} 5,670
{table} New Brunswick{tfi} 11,200 {mspc} 3,830
{table} Manitoba{tfi} 11,125 {mspc} 3,805
{table} Newfoundland and Labrador{tfi} 10,160 {mspc} 3,635
{table} Saskatchewan{tfi} 6,050 {mspc} 2,040
{table} Prince Edward Island{tfi} 2,680 {mspc} 740
{table} Northwest Territories{tfi} 1,090 {mspc} 225
{table} Nunavut{tfi} 580 {mspc} 280
{table} Yukon Territory{tfi} 545 {mspc} 165
Move from:
{table} Quebec {mspc} 52,770 {mspc} 17,085
{table} British Columbia {mspc} 38,120 {mspc} 10,775
{table} Alberta {mspc} 29,800 {mspc} 9,025
{table} Nova Scotia {mspc} 19,450 {mspc} 6,495
{table} Manitoba {mspc} 13,975 {mspc} 4,160
{table} New Brunswick {mspc} 11,395 {mspc} 3,515
{table} Newfoundland and Labrador {mspc} 9,060 {mspc} 2,725
{table} Saskatchewan {mspc} 7,060 {mspc} 1,820
{table} Prince Edward Island {mspc} 2,125 {mspc} 475
{table} Northwest Territories {mspc} 900 {mspc} 355
{table} Nunavut {mspc} 775 {mspc} 305
{table} Yukon Territories {mspc} 355 {mspc} 100
