The People of Canada

There are approximately 33 million people living in Canada, making it a middle-sized nation. Smaller than a place like Italy or Spain, but larger than Australia or Belgium.

A "multicultural" country

Officially, the Canadian constitution recognizes Canada as a "multicultural" country. What this exactly means is rather disputed, but the idea of multiculturalism is still revered by a great many Canadians. It tends to be one of the main adjectives which you'll hear used to describe the country in politics, the media, and the education system. We even have a Multiculturalism Day, according to the Government of Canada, though it is honestly not a day that gets much press.

On a most basic level, the phrase "multiculturalism" reflects the fact that Canada is home to an extremely diverse collection of peoples from all corners of the world. When it comes to immigrants, Canada is the most welcoming country on Earth, allowing in at least 230,000 every year. Almost 20% of Canada's entire population was born outside of the country. Canada has a rather low birth rate, so immigrants are vitally necessary to keeping the country's economy and cities strong.

"Multiculturalism" can also be a more partisan, loaded term, however. Historically, when immigrants came to Canada they were expected to assimilate into the culture and manners of the British ethnic majority (see below). Now, however, successive governments have argued this is a rather bigoted policy, and encourage "multicultural tolerance" as an alternative to assimilation. What this means is contested as well. Some see multicultural tolerance as allowing immigrants to freely speak their own languages and practice their own cultures, with the government actively encouraging both endeavors. A strong Canadian multiculturalist might encourage the banks to provide service in Chinese, for example, or for the local Canada Day festival to feature Russian folk dancing.

Conservative critics tend to oppose all this, however. The argue this sort of multiculturalism"ghettoizes" and segregates people, and makes them identify with their countries of origin rather than their new country, Canada. It's unclear how relevant multicultural policies are in the long run, however. The longer a family stays in Canada the more likely they are to assimilate, with each post-immigrant generation being more assimilated than the last. This is generally the way things have always worked in North America.

The Hyphenated Canadians

Let's now look at the main ethnic groups of Canada. The phrase "hyphenated Canadian" is often used to refer to the people of this country, in the sense that though we're all Canadians, we're all something else as well.

"English Canadian" is a rather complex term because it has multiple definitions. Today it has generally evolved into a generic description of all Canadians living outside of Quebec who speak and work in English. This creates a simple narrative of Canada as a country composed of an "English Canadian" majority and "French Canadian" minority.

"English Canadian" can also have a more precise, ethnic definition, however. The largest ethnic group in Canada (around 30%) are those who are "Anglo" in origin, ie: descendent from immigrants from the British Isles. For most of Canadian history Anglo-Canadians have held most positions of wealth, power, and influence in the country. Canada was founded to be an explicitly"British" nation, and as a result the culture and ethnic pride of this particular group was always elevated to a higher status than any other immigrant community in the country. It was not until the mid 20th Century, when the number of British immigrants began to decline and other immigrant groups grew, that official British-pride began to give way to the multicultural status quo we have today.

One should not make too much of the historic dominance of the Anglo-Canadians. The British never held their control through any sort of Apartheid type system, and although there was discrimination, it was rarely codified into law. Yet the fact remains that for a long time Anglos were considered the most "pure" or "true" Canadians. Many of Canada's national symbols and institutions continue to be very British in style, reflecting this legacy of Anglophilia.

After Anglo-Canadians, the largest ethnic group in Canada consists of Canadians who are French in origin. Some consider French-Canadians to be a distinct race of their own; this is largely because immigration from France to Canada more or less ended after the imperial French army was kicked out of North America in the late 18th Century. Most French-Canadians can thus trace their roots back to a very small community of colonial families.

French-Canadians almost exclusively live in the province of Quebec, where they compose the majority of the population. Because of the ethnic homogeneity of their province, the Canadian government now considers Quebec to be a "nation within a nation," and many Quebecers want to separate from Canada altogether, and become an independent country. Read more about their struggles on the Quebec page.

There are French-Canadians in other parts of Canada as well, mostly those who have migrated from Quebec at some point in history. Though they are a very small community, their relevance tends to be played up a lot because it helps re-enforce the idea of Canada as a "bilingual" nation, with English and French speakers scattered liberally all across the country, as opposed to just being segregated into two opposite corners.

Other European-Canadians

After French and British, the rest of white Canada is a eclectic mix of many different European nationalities. People of German descent are the biggest percentage, at 8%.

Italian-Canadians are next, at around 4%. Numbering over a million, they say there are more Italians in Canada than anywhere else in the world, other than Italy.

Western Canada is famous for being home to a large amount of Eastern-European migrants, who settled in the farmland during the Great Depression of the 1920's. Ukrainians are by far the biggest group, followed by Poles and Russians.

Approximately 15% of Canada is non-white in race. This may seem low to people who have been in Canada, but you have to remember that most of the non-whites are concentrated in the big cities, where they are most visible.

Asians are Canada's fastest-growing minority, and more and more of them immigrate to Canada every year. At present they make up about 10% of the population. The largest group within this demographic are Chinese, who make up 3% of Canada's population overall. China continues to be Canada's number one source of immigrants at the moment.

Blacks in Canada tend to fall under one of two groups; African-Americans, who are the descendants of black slaves, or African-Carribbeans, who are immigrants from the Caribbean. As slavery was never particularly widespread in Canada (though mostly for economic, rather than moral reasons) most of Canada's blacks represent the latter group. Toronto in particular has a rising Afro-Carribbean population, as does Quebec. "Plain" Africans, that is, immigrants from Africa, are also on the rise. Canadians Blacks are a very small community overall, however, and only compose 1% of the population, if even that.

Native Americans, also known as aboriginals or First Nations peoples or "Indians," if you want to be really politically incorrect, are the descendants of the peoples who originally inhabited the land that is now Canada. But they've been mostly killed off over the centuries, so their numbers are very small today, somewhere from 1-3% of the population, depending on how you define an "Indian." I go into more depth about them on my Natives page.

Real Indians, that is, people who are actually from the Indian subcontinent, are another substantial minority in Canada and probably one of the most high-profile and successful. One sees far more Indian-Canadians in the media, politics, and business than other minority races. Exact numbers on the "East Indian" (as they are often called) population are hard to find, because they often get lumped together with the generic"Asian" demographic. Most Canadians would regard an "Asian" as someone oriental in race, rather than someone literally "from Asia."

Religion in Canadian

As is the case in much of the western world, formal church attendance has long been on the decline in Canada. Canadians still remain among the most religious people in the west, however. We are much more religious than Europeans but less religious than the United States. Part of this is in turn due to the fact that Quebec lowers the national average. French-Canadians are among the least religious people in all of North America, and are very likely to be agnostic or atheist.

Over 80% of Canadians believe in God and 66% believe Jesus Christ was the literal son of God. This makes Christians by far the biggest religious group in Canada.

Most Canadian Christians are Catholics, 43%. The Protestant denominations are much smaller and scattered, as we can see from this chart:

Jews only compose 1% of the Canadian population, but I would say they have been a very successful minority both politically and economically, and as a result hold a higher and more powerful profile than may be expected from their numbers. The reason why Canada has such a small amount of Jews is probably a legacy of our famously anti-Semitic immigration policy, which continued well into the 20th Century and ensured that most European Jews immigrated to the United States instead.

2% of Canada is Muslim, a population that almost entirely consists of first-generation immigrants from the Middle East and Asia. They say Islam is the "fastest growing religion" in Canada, but that's only because we're taking in more and more immigrants from that part of the world, not because existing Canadians are converting.