Visible minority
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Visible minorities is a term used primarily in Quebec to describe persons who are not of the majority race in a given population. In March, 2007, the United Nations deplored the term as racist.[1]
In Canada, visible minorities are defined as "persons, other than Aboriginals, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." The term is used as a demographic category used by Statistics Canada in connection with that country's multiculturalism policies. It is also occasionally used in the United Kingdom[citation needed], but not in other parts of the world.
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[edit] Visible minorities in Canada
Nearly four million Canadians identified themselves as a visible minority in the 2001 Census, accounting for 13.4% of the total population. This was an increase from 1996 when the proportion was 11.2%, and a major increase over 1991 (9.4%) and 1981 (4.7%). The increase represents a significant shift in Canada's demographics since the advent of that country's multiculturalism policies.
Of the provinces, British Columbia had the highest proportion of visible minorities, representing 21.6% of its population, followed by Ontario at 19.1%. People of Chinese origin are Canada’s largest visible minority group, with a population of more than one million. In 2001, they made up 3.5% of the country’s population, followed by South Asians (3.1%) and Black Canadian (2.2%).
| Population | Per cent of population |
|
| Chinese | 1,029,395 | 3.5% |
| Indo Canadian | 917,075 | 3.1% |
| Black | 662,210 | 2.2% |
| Filipino | 308,575 | 1.0% |
| Latin American | 216,975 | 0.7% |
| Southeast Asian | 198,880 | 0.7% |
| Arab | 194,680 | 0.7% |
| West Asian | 109,285 | 0.4% |
| Korean | 100,660 | 0.3% |
| Japanese | 73,315 | 0.2% |
| Visible minority, n.i.e. | 98,920 | 0.3% |
| Multiple visible minorities | 73,875 | 0.2% |
| Total visible minority population | 3,983,845 | 13.4% |
| Source: Statistics Canada, 2001 Census, 97F0010XCB2001002 | ||
