Filipinos continue to be the fourth largest visible minority group at about 960,000, representing 2.6 percent of the population based on the latest census release by Statistics Canada. In 2016, the number was over 837,000.
Leading the pack of visible minority groups are South Asians comprising 7.1 percent of the population, followed by the Chinese (4.7 percent) and Black (4.3 percent). Together with Filipinos, these four visible minority groups comprise over 18 percent of Canada’s total population.
Philippines came in second as the primary place of birth of new immigrants to Canada between 2016 and 2021 (11.4 percent). India took the top spot (18.6 percent)and China in third spot (8.9 percent).
The same report noted that Filipinos have a more recent history of immigration to Canada compared to other racialized groups. In 2021, 72.6 percent of Filipinos reported to have had immigrated to Canada in the last 20 years. Almost three-quarters of Canadian Filipinos were born in the Philippines while the rest were born in Canada.
Immigrants tend to settle in Canada’s large urban centres. This is true for Filipinos who call Toronto and Vancouver home. Additionally, the 2021 census revealed that one out of four Filipinos in Canada lived in the metropolitan areas of Calgary (9.3 percent), Winnipeg (8.8 percent) and Edmonton (8.4 percent).
The same goes for the Prairie provinces where Filipinos represented 5.2 percent of Alberta’s population, 7.2 percent of Manitoba’s and 4 percent of Saskatchewan. Filipinos are second only to the largest group in the Prairie provinces which are the South Asians at 7.1 percent, 5.4 percent and 4.1 percent respectively.
The growth of racialized groups in Canada continues to steadily increase. It is projected that by year 2041, the Filipino population could go over two million.
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