As living standards rise across China and South Asia it appears fewer workers from those countries are seeking immigration to Canada.
Instead, new sources such as the Philippines are emerging as feeder countries to Canada’s fast-growing population of foreign-born residents, according to a new study released Wednesday by TD Economics.
Based on data collected in the 2011 federal National Household Survey, first-generation Canadians or those born outside the country number 6.8 million, or 21 per cent of the population – the highest share among G8 nations, the TD report said.
However, the total share of those coming from China and India – two historically dominant sources of inflows of immigrants to Canada – slipped to 56.9 per cent from 60 per cent in the last census in 2006.
About 240,000 people moved to Canada from the two countries between the census reports, down from 270,000 reported in 2006.
Underscoring the declines is the percentage of newcomers to indicate their mother tongues as either a Chinese or Indian dialect.
In 2006, 40 per cent of recent immigrants reported their primary language as either South Asian or Chinese. In 2011, that figure fell to 30 per cent.
“The advanced world went through a major retrenchment in terms of their economies and there was much more reason to stay in those countries,” Fong said.
Incomes per capita have indeed surged in India and China over the last seven years while remaining flat – though substantially higher – in Canada through the recession and up to the present, according to IMF data.
Stronger economies combined with recent changes to Canadian immigration policy that have placed more emphasis on official French or English language capacity could mean the downtrend continues, Fong said.
“The share of immigration coming from China and South Asia may continue to decline in the years ahead,” TD said.
This shift could hold negative implications for the Canadian economy, Fong said.
“A lot of the world skilled labour is going to come from those two countries,” the bank economist said. “So there is concern.”
Demographic results were released in the DHS two weeks ago, the first data to come from the voluntary survey, which replaced the mandatory census of years past. Statistics Canada warned results are inherently less reliable than previous censuses, something TD acknowledged in Wednesday’s report.
“Comparability issues aside, we summarize the key trends and issues related immigrants to shed light on recent developments,” the bank said.
Other findings in the report include:
- The three Prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have doubled their share of new immigrants to about 20 per cent in 2011, matching Quebec.
- The Philippines accounted for 13.1 per cent of all new immigrants to Canada between 2006 and 2011, supplanting both China (10.5 per cent) and India (10.4 per cent).
- “Seismic shifts” in settlement patterns were seen during 2006-2011, with provinces like Manitoba and in Atlantic Canada seeing the amount of immigrants surge, partly because of government programs to attract skilled labour.
- B.C. and Ontario, which historically have seen three quarters of newcomers take up residence in the provinces, saw their combined share slip to 60 per cent in 2011 with fewer immigrants settling in places like Toronto and Vancouver where the cost of living has climbed sharply.
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