In Depth
Immigration
Immigration in Canada: from 1947 to 2017
Celebrating the past and projecting the future
Last Updated June 10, 2008
CBC News
Changes to Canada's immigration law aimed at reducing a backlog of applications have recently passed in the House of Commons, and could make the immigration minister much more powerful.
VIDEO FEATURES
2007 is the 60th anniversary of Canada's Citizenship Act
- Paul Hunter reports on a 1947 MP who pushed immigration issues forward (Runs 6:44)
- Peter Gullage profiles on a family from Iran becoming citizens of Canada (Runs 4:10)
- Sheila Taylor reports on a Colombian farm family that moved to PEI (Runs 3:34)
- Odile Nelson meets a Trinidadian who is becoming a citizen after 35 years (Runs 3:10)
- Carolyn Dunn introduces new citizen Matilda Kamara of Sierre Leone (Runs 5:25)
The amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act will give the minister greater selection powers to limit the number of new immigration applicants.
It will also allow the government to fast-track applications from the types of immigrants it wants, such as skilled workers, and freeze applications from others.
The Tories have argued the measures are necessary to reduce a current backlog of more than 900,000 immigration applications, which has created wait times of between three and six years for even those who meet all the requirements.
A group of immigrant service organizations has decried the Conservative government's proposed changes, saying the measures place too much power in the hands of the minister in charge.
Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff said the government's change of one word in the existing legislation would give the minister the power to reject even those who meet all the visa requirements.
The proposed legislation says a visa or document "may" be issued to an applicant who has been ruled admissible by immigration officers, while the existing law says a visa or document "shall" be issued.
The Liberals abstained from the vote on the amendments because they were part of a budget implementation act, making it a confidence motion. Had the vote not passed, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government would have been brought down, forcing an election.
Minorities in Canada
In the 2001 census, the most recent ethnicity figures, 13 per cent of Canadians identified themselves as belonging to a visible minority.
But by 2017, if Statistics Canada projections hold true, that number could climb to between 19 and 23 per cent.
What's more, by Canada's 150th birthday, almost 95 per cent of visible minorities would live in metropolitan areas, with three-quarters living in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal.
And about one-half of the people living in Toronto and Vancouver would belong to a visible minority by 2017.
According to the projections, the visible minority population of Toronto will range between 2.8 million and nearly 3.9 million within 12 years.
The main reason for this, Statistics Canada says, is an expectation of sustained immigration to Canada over the next 12 years, and the fact that a high proportion of immigrants are non-white.
Statistics Canada set up five different scenarios for future immigration rates and population growth. These scenarios predict that Canada's immigrant population could reach between seven million and 9.3 million in 2017.
It's a prediction that came to fruition in 2006, when one in five Canadian residents was born outside the country — the highest level in 75 years. That proportion grew substantially from 18.4 per cent of the population, just five years earlier.
Chinese and South Asians were the largest visible minority groups in Canada according to the 2001 census, and the projection doesn't see that changing. Roughly half of all visible minorities would belong to those groups by 2017.
Blacks would remain Canada's third-largest minority group, reaching a population of about one million.
In Toronto, about a third of visible minorities would be South Asians. Nearly half of the visible minority population in Vancouver would be Chinese. And in Montreal, blacks and Arabs would remain the largest visible minority groups, representing 27 per cent and 19 per cent of the minority population, respectively.
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