The debut of Canada’s controversial census replacement survey shows there are more foreign-born people in the country than ever before, at a proportion not seen in almost a century.

They’re young, they’re suburban, and they’re mainly from Asia, although Africans are arriving in growing numbers.

But the historical comparisons are few and far between in the National Household Survey, which Statistics Canada designed to replace the cancelled/eliminated long-form survey.

The new survey of almost three million people shows that Canada is home to 6.8 million foreign-born residents, or 20.6 per cent of the population, compared with 19.8 per cent in 2006, and the highest in the G8 group of rich countries.   Almost one in five people living in Canada is a visible minority.

And in nine different municipalities, those visible minorities are actually the majority.

Above from CBC – below from Canadian Press

— About 1,162,900 foreign-born people immigrated to Canada between 2006 and 2011, making up 17.2 per cent of the foreign-born population and 3.5 per cent of Canada’s total population.

— More than 200 different ethnic origins were reported in the 2011 survey, with 13 of them representing more than a million people each.

— Nearly 6,264,800 people identified themselves as a visible minority, representing 19.1 per cent of the population. 65 per cent of them were born outside Canada.

— More than 22.1 million people — two-thirds of Canadians — said they were affiliated with a Christian religion, including 12.7 million Roman Catholics, the largest single group.

— Slightly more than one million people, or 3.2 per cent of the population, identified themselves as Muslim, while Hindus represented 1.5 per cent, Sikhs 1.4 per cent, Buddhists 1.1 per cent and Jews one per cent.

— 1,400,685 people identified themselves as aboriginal in 2011, representing 4.3 per cent of the Canadian population. Aboriginal Peoples accounted for 3.8 per cent of the population in 2006, 3.3 per cent in 2001 and 2.8 per cent in 1996.

— Canada’s aboriginal population grew by 20.1 per cent — 232,385 people — between 2006 and 2011, compared with 5.2 per cent for non-aboriginal people.