Steady decrease in Indian immigrants in Canada
South Asian Observer
Oct 12 2009
As India continues to make economic strides, there has been a steady decrease in number of Permanent Residents in Canada that come from India, since 2005, as shown in the Immigration department statistics.
Punjabi, meanwhile, retains its top position among the native Indian languages at sixth position. The number of permanent residents by mother tongue puts it ahead of Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Bengali.
India had 17,457 permanent residents accepted in Canada in 1999. The department statistics show the number kept on increasing till 2002, when it was 28,838. It dropped to 24,594 in 2003. There was a slight increase the next year at 25,573. In 2005, it rose to 33,146. A gradual decrease began after that. In 2006 it was 30,754; 26,052 in 2007 and 24,549 in 2008.
China remains the number one source country for immigrants, although the number of permanent residents from China too has dropped to 29,336 from 42,292 in 2005. Pakistan is down to 8,052 from 13,575 in 2005.
In comparison immigration from the U.S., the U.K., and the Philippines is on the rise, as is immigration from Korea, France and Iran.
14,315 permanent residents that were accepted in Canada last year spoke Punjabi. The corresponding figures for some other languages were – Urdu 7,899; Hindi 4,615; Tamil 4,492; Gujarati 4,193 and Bengali 3,370
28.3% of the 247,243 permanent residents accepted last year spoke neither English nor French down from 45.9% in 2002.
At the same time, the number of immigrants who speak English has been steadily climbing. In 2008, 56.6% of those accepted spoke English, up from 53.7% in 2007 and 43.4% in 2002.
