Toronto and Vancouver are a true reflection of a country that is changing fast, spurred by an enterprising, polyglot community of 31 million people. Canada is at the crossroads of change, driven by a powerful demographic reality. Its birth rate has dropped by at least 25 per cent over the last eighteen years to 11.5 births per thousand and by 2020 the current population growth will reach zero. It's just as well that its growth is now fuelled by an influx of new citizens.
About a million immigrants came to Canada in the first half of the nineties according to the 1996 census. The switch in emphasis to occupation and skills instead of race has brought more people from Asia rather than Europe as it did 30 years ago. The pace of immigrant flow into Canada was set in 1990, since when some 200,000 people or more have been coming to Canada every year, compared with an annual immigrant flow of only about 80,000 in the preceding decade. The immigrant tide is rising and will obviously produce a sea-change in the demographics. Today's new immigrants come from Hong Kong, India, China, Taiwan, Pakistan, Philippines, Iran, Sri Lanka, the United States, the United Kingdom and Bosnia-Herzegovina. They account for half the total that immigrates to Canada every year. At the same time, traditional sources of immigrants - notably Europe and more recently South Asia - are giving way to Latin America, China, West Asia and even Africa. Within the next decade up to 80 per cent of all immigrants may be visible minorities.
Canada's growing diversity is a gigantic problem at the municipal level too. It's understood that 45 per cent of high school students in Richmond, B.C., speak a language other than English at home. Mexicans and Central Americans suffer from unusually high unemployment rates. Vietnamese immigrants have difficulty with the school system. In Toronto, more than 40 per cent of the high school students are foreign-born. In tandem, police departments are scrambling to keep up with their changing communities. In general, city planners are working.
