PH one of top three countries of origin for immigrants in Canada

Recent data from Statistics Canada has revealed that the Philippines is one of the top three countries of origin for recent immigrants, with the others being India and China.

This data comes in stark contrast to the demographics of immigrants pre-1970s, where immigrants were mostly white. John Paul Catungal, a Filipino-Canadian assistant professor at the University of British Columbia Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, commented on the phenomenon in an interview with CityNews.

“This is, part and parcel, of that upward trend towards kind of the Asianization of immigration to the Canadian context,” Catungal stated.

According to Catungal, the difference comes from a ‘concentrated effort’ to keep Canada white in previous years.

“With the shift away from that, the introduction of the points-based merit system, the criterion of whiteness came to be downplayed a little more in terms of the demographics of immigration,” he told CityNews.

Another factor for the increase in Asian immigration to British Columbia and Canada is the creation of specific pathways to immigration.

“Migrant worker programs like the Live-in Caregiver Program and temporary migrant work in agriculture or the service sector or that have encouraged particularly labor migrants from countries like the Philippines,” Catungal explained.

Canada aims to emigrate more than 430,000 permanent residents this year – an increase of roughly 7.4% from its record-setting 401,000 new residents last year.