Canada's Proud Mosaic
The news is out; Canada has absorbed over one million immigrants within the past five years. As a huge geography, stretching over the top of North America, and with a relatively slender population at some thirty-two million, that one million represents a whopping big immigrant demographic.
As a country which has been blessed with a huge range of topography, from prairies to mountains, with vast forests, wetlands and fresh-water lakes this is a land of great beauty. From our far northern regions to our maritime provinces, there are living opportunities for all who venture here, alongside our old-guard population.
Mineral deposits, great natural resources are to be found within this geography stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic oceans. This divergent geography offers opportunities to a widely divergent population.
Understandably, most immigrants who arrive here chose to live in large urban centres. Where they expect to find employment, where they often join extended family, where sectors reflecting their own cultures and traditions have already settled and set up places of worship, community centres and commercial centres where traditional food can be found.
This country, like most other developed countries, is not replacing itself naturally; we have a relatively low birth-rate. Jobs are going unfilled, and the future, without immigrants stepping in to bolster our future workforce, would most certainly result in a deflated economy, a most certain slow-down of our economic advancement.
Through immigration we are able to welcome families and individuals from other countries who recognize Canada as a place of future opportunities to advance their own singular aspirations, a place where their children will be educated, and where the stable political climate ensures they're a long way from the strife so many flee in their countries of origin.
We've achieved a high Asian population, most of whom choose to settle in central Canada, in Toronto, or in western Canada, in Vancouver, enriching us with their high learning aptitude and work ethic. Those who speak Mandarin or Cantonese, or any of a handful of other Asian languages are able, in fact, to live entirely in those languages, absent of a need for English, in well established Asian enclaves in Toronto, where all their professional and commercial needs can be attended to by others from within the Asian community. Toronto long ago erected street signposts in both English and Mandarin in specific areas.
Both Toronto's and Vancouver's populations identify as 40% allophone: languages other than French and English. Nationally there are almost 200 mother-tongues reported through census-taking statistics. The largest language groups are Chinese, Italian and German.
In the nation's capital, a large number of immigrants have come from Arab countries: Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iran and Lybia. Ottawa's Arab population doubled since the first Gulf War in 1991. Ottawa has a large population of South Vietnamese and Somalians.
Within Canada's largest cities newest immigrants most commonly are sourced from China, Algeria, Morocco, Romania, France, India, China, Pakistan, Philippines, Iran, Colombia and Lebanon. Where previously immigrants had come traditionally from the British Isles, and then later, from West Europe, and Eastern Europe.
In earlier immigrations, when Canada had brought people over to the country as workers from China they existed here in conditions that could be likened to indentured slavery. During the Second World War loyal citizens of Japanese descent were incarcerated as enemy aliens. Migrations of Ukrainians and Jews led to the expansion of the population, industries and farming communities of Western Canada.
Poles, Italians, Portuguese and Germans made up a sizeable proportion of immigrants, followed later by Africans and Asians fleeing war situations as refugees. Little wonder we're such a varied kaleidoscope of humanity. People do have a tendency, particularly initially on arrival, of huddling together to achieve the warmth of familiarity in a strange new land.
If, on the other hand, the future grants us an atmosphere of relaxed attitudes and perceptions among the population as future-generation Canadians representing all ethnic/cultural demographics, living in integrated harmony we will have achieved much in the accomplishment of understanding and accommodation between peoples of varied origins.
We can only hope.
As a country which has been blessed with a huge range of topography, from prairies to mountains, with vast forests, wetlands and fresh-water lakes this is a land of great beauty. From our far northern regions to our maritime provinces, there are living opportunities for all who venture here, alongside our old-guard population.
Mineral deposits, great natural resources are to be found within this geography stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic oceans. This divergent geography offers opportunities to a widely divergent population.
Understandably, most immigrants who arrive here chose to live in large urban centres. Where they expect to find employment, where they often join extended family, where sectors reflecting their own cultures and traditions have already settled and set up places of worship, community centres and commercial centres where traditional food can be found.
This country, like most other developed countries, is not replacing itself naturally; we have a relatively low birth-rate. Jobs are going unfilled, and the future, without immigrants stepping in to bolster our future workforce, would most certainly result in a deflated economy, a most certain slow-down of our economic advancement.
Through immigration we are able to welcome families and individuals from other countries who recognize Canada as a place of future opportunities to advance their own singular aspirations, a place where their children will be educated, and where the stable political climate ensures they're a long way from the strife so many flee in their countries of origin.
We've achieved a high Asian population, most of whom choose to settle in central Canada, in Toronto, or in western Canada, in Vancouver, enriching us with their high learning aptitude and work ethic. Those who speak Mandarin or Cantonese, or any of a handful of other Asian languages are able, in fact, to live entirely in those languages, absent of a need for English, in well established Asian enclaves in Toronto, where all their professional and commercial needs can be attended to by others from within the Asian community. Toronto long ago erected street signposts in both English and Mandarin in specific areas.
Both Toronto's and Vancouver's populations identify as 40% allophone: languages other than French and English. Nationally there are almost 200 mother-tongues reported through census-taking statistics. The largest language groups are Chinese, Italian and German.
In the nation's capital, a large number of immigrants have come from Arab countries: Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iran and Lybia. Ottawa's Arab population doubled since the first Gulf War in 1991. Ottawa has a large population of South Vietnamese and Somalians.
Within Canada's largest cities newest immigrants most commonly are sourced from China, Algeria, Morocco, Romania, France, India, China, Pakistan, Philippines, Iran, Colombia and Lebanon. Where previously immigrants had come traditionally from the British Isles, and then later, from West Europe, and Eastern Europe.
In earlier immigrations, when Canada had brought people over to the country as workers from China they existed here in conditions that could be likened to indentured slavery. During the Second World War loyal citizens of Japanese descent were incarcerated as enemy aliens. Migrations of Ukrainians and Jews led to the expansion of the population, industries and farming communities of Western Canada.
Poles, Italians, Portuguese and Germans made up a sizeable proportion of immigrants, followed later by Africans and Asians fleeing war situations as refugees. Little wonder we're such a varied kaleidoscope of humanity. People do have a tendency, particularly initially on arrival, of huddling together to achieve the warmth of familiarity in a strange new land.
If, on the other hand, the future grants us an atmosphere of relaxed attitudes and perceptions among the population as future-generation Canadians representing all ethnic/cultural demographics, living in integrated harmony we will have achieved much in the accomplishment of understanding and accommodation between peoples of varied origins.
We can only hope.
posted by Pieface | 5:38 PM
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