SASKATOON – Saskatchewan is a multicultural mosaic as supported by recent numbers released Wednesday from Statistics Canada’s National Household Survey (NHS).
Saskatchewan may not be in the top four when it comes to immigrants living in the country, but the numbers have steadily risen in the last five years.
According to the NHS, the Filipino community is the fastest growing immigrant group in Saskatchewan.
“Very shocked, I was under the assumption that other countries were leading the statistics, for example China but when the statistics came out today I was very, very pleased,” said Mike San Miguel, president of the Saskatoon Filipino Canadian Association.
There are more than 200 ethnicities living in the country.
The survey reports one out of five Canadians are born in a different country. In Saskatchewan, 0.7 per cent of the population in 2006 were newcomers. That number jumped to 2.3 percent in 2011 and is expected to keep growing.
“Those numbers come from a fact that Saskatchewan has a very strong economy and that means people would like to move to Saskatchewan,” said Getachew Woldeyesus from the Regina Open Door Society.
There are a number of programs in Saskatoon aimed at making the move easier for immigrants with funding from the provincial and federal government.
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