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150 years of immigration in Canada

Canada has long been, and continues to be, a land of immigration. Since Confederation in 1867, more than 17 million immigrants have come to Canada.

VIDEO : 150 Years of Immigration - Where (and when) did we come from?

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Population fluctuations

The annual number of landed immigrants in Canada has fluctuated considerably over the last 150 years. Some of these

fluctuations can be linked to immigration policy changes, others to Canada's economic situation or world events connected

with the movement of migrants and refugees.

For example, in the late 1800s, the number of immigrants admitted annually to Canada varied between 6,300 and 133,000.

Record numbers of immigrants were admitted in the early 1900s when Canada was promoting the settlement of Western

Canada. The highest number ever recorded was in 1913, when more than 400,000 immigrants arrived in the country.

However, the number of people entering the country dropped dramatically during World War I, to fewer than 34,000 landed

immigrants in 1915. The lowest numbers of landed immigrants were recorded during the Great Depression in the 1930s and

during World War II. The return of peace fostered economic recovery and an immigration boom in Canada.

Other record levels of immigration have been registered during political and humanitarian crises, including in 1956 and 1957,

when 37,500 Hungarian refugees arrived in the country, and in the 1970s and 1980s, when a large number of Ugandan,

Chilean, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees came to Canada.

Since the early 1990s, the number of landed immigrants has remained relatively high, with an average of approximately

235,000 new immigrants per year.

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Source countries changing

The composition of the foreign-born population has changed considerably in 150 years, and the censuses revealed a shift in the places of birth of Canada’s foreign-born population.

In the past, immigrants mainly from European countries

During the first few censuses after Confederation, the British Isles were the main source of immigration, accounting for 83.6% of the foreign-born population in the 1871 Census, or close to half a million people. Immigrants from the United States (10.9%), Germany (4.1%) and France (0.5%) were far behind.

The population of immigrants born in European countries other than those of the British Isles started to increase in the late 1800s, slowly at first and then more rapidly, peaking in the 1970s. This transformation consisted of three major waves.

The first wave began in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with the arrival of new groups of immigrants from Eastern Europe (Russians, Polish and Ukrainians), Western Europe and Scandinavia.

A second immigration boom following World War II continued to favour immigration from the British Isles, but a significant number of immigrants also arrived from Western Europe (Germany and the Netherlands) and Southern Europe (Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia and Portugal) from the 1950s to the 1970s. At the time of the 1971 Census, 28.3% of immigrants were born in the United Kingdom and 51.4% were born in another European country.

Lastly, Canada admitted immigrants from Eastern Europe (including the Russian Federation and former Soviet republics, Poland and Romania) in the 1980s and 1990s, following political changes in Communist bloc countries, including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

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From the 1960s onwards, increasing diversity

During the first 100 years after Confederation, Canada also admitted immigrants from Asia (primarily China and Japan) and other parts of the world. Starting in the 1960s, when major amendments were made to Canada's immigration legislation and regulations, the number of immigrants from Asia and other regions of the world started to grow.

World events also led to the massive movement of refugees and migrants from different parts of the world to Canada. Examples include the arrival of 60,000 boat people from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the late 1970s; 85,000 immigrants from the Caribbean and Bermuda (for example, Jamaica, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago) in the 1980s; 225,000 immigrants from Hong Kong over the 10 years leading up to its return to China by the United Kingdom in 1997; and 800,000 immigrants from the People's Republic of China, India and the Philippines in the 2000s.

According to the 2011 National Household Survey, Asia (including the Middle East) is now the main continent of origin of the immigrant population, although Africa's share has increased. As well, for the first time since Confederation, China and India (excluding the two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao) have surpassed the United Kingdom as the country of birth most frequently reported by foreign-born people.

Date modified: 2017-09-12