20^th Century Immigration Facts

Canada has welcomed a total of 13.4 million immigrants since 1901. Between 1991 and 2000 alone, 2.2 million immigrants were admitted to Canada, the highest number for any decade in the past century. In contrast, 1.3 million immigrants came in the 1980s, and 1.4 million in each of the 1970s and 1960s.

Flows had not been this high since the beginning of the century. Between 1901 and 1910, Canada accepted 1.6 million immigrants. This rose to 1.7 million in the subsequent decade, 1911 to 1920. The lowest number arrived during the two decades of the Great Depression and the Second World War.

Historically, Canada's annual intake of immigrants has rarely been higher than 1% of its total population. The major exception occurred in the early part of the century between 1911 and 1913, when the number of immigrants entering Canada represented about 5% of the population. More recently, Canada's annual intake of immigrants has represented less than 1% of the total population. During the 1990s, the proportion ranged between 0.6% and 0.9%.

Since the late 1980s, Canada has had a proportionately higher annual intake of immigrants than either the United States or Australia. Per capita, it receives more immigrants than these two major immigrant-receiving countries. Nevertheless, Australia's foreign-born population is higher than that of Canada (22% versus 18% for Canada) and has been since 1971. Canada's foreign-born population in 2001 has been the highest proportionately in 70 years.

Of the immigrants who arrived since 1991, 58% came from Asia, including the Middle East; 20% from Europe, 11% from the Caribbean, Central and South America; 8% from Africa; 3% from the U.S. The People's Republic of China was the leading country of birth among individuals who immigrated to Canada in the 1990s, followed by India, the Philippines, H-K, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Taiwan. By contrast, European immigrants accounted for 90% of the immigrants who came to Canada before 1961.  

In 2001, 94% of immigrants who arrived during the 1990s were living in Canadian census metropolitan areas, compared with 64% of the total population who lived in these areas. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of the immigrants who came in the 1990s lived in just three census metropolitan areas, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. In contrast, just over one-third of Canada's total population lived in these three areas.

The proportion of visible minorities in Canada's population has increased steadily over the past 20 years, accounting to 13.4% of the total population in 2001 (or 4 million individuals) from 4.7% of the total population in 1981. The growth of the visible minority population during the last several decades was largely a result of immigration patterns. In 2001, three-quarters (73%) of immigrants who came in 1990s were members of visible minority groups. This was an increase from 1991 when 68% of those who came in the 1980s were visible minorities and in 1981, 52% of those arriving in the 1970s. 3 out of every 10 individuals who were visible minorities were born in Canada.  In 2001, Chinese was the largest visible minority group, surpassing one million for the first time.