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Facts and figures 2008 – Immigration overview:
Permanent and temporary residents

Permanent residents

Canada – Permanent residents by mother tongue

Number
Mother Tongue 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
English 18,606 19,560 22,136 18,868 18,694 22,032 22,906 24,884 26,615 28,751
Mandarin 24,975 31,389 36,178 28,127 31,714 31,456 37,321 28,049 23,207 26,086
Arabic 12,496 15,492 20,217 18,049 17,218 18,985 19,516 20,008 18,996 21,925
Tagalog 8,328 9,612 12,557 10,610 11,442 12,443 16,332 16,099 16,539 20,835
Spanish 7,250 8,719 10,143 10,461 12,489 14,319 17,106 17,059 16,913 16,292
Punjabi 11,396 14,038 14,402 15,270 13,845 13,256 17,037 17,714 14,281 14,315
French 4,722 5,343 5,597 5,199 5,391 6,802 7,476 7,430 8,305 8,334
Urdu 8,616 13,613 15,250 13,466 11,960 11,722 12,798 11,231 8,896 7,899
Korean 7,236 7,661 9,664 7,410 7,179 5,420 5,905 6,295 5,983 7,377
Russian 9,349 9,449 10,017 9,416 8,392 8,759 8,637 7,300 7,293 6,697
Chinese 9,927 8,761 7,113 6,768 4,412 4,656 5,743 6,114 5,230 5,693
Farsi 4,653 4,502 4,680 6,916 5,042 5,069 4,936 6,117 5,838 5,459
Hindi 2,937 4,303 5,339 5,320 4,395 5,347 6,017 5,220 4,604 4,615
Tamil 5,150 6,480 6,195 5,825 4,915 5,113 5,318 5,237 4,292 4,492
Gujarati 2,039 5,316 5,463 5,964 4,731 4,656 7,363 5,615 5,183 4,193
German 2,207 2,201 1,961 1,866 2,245 2,387 2,565 3,077 2,864 4,144
Romanian 3,542 4,541 5,628 5,815 5,559 5,859 5,261 4,877 4,494 3,536
Cantonese 5,451 5,322 4,704 5,243 5,207 5,008 5,452 4,677 3,977 3,434
Bengali 2,357 3,495 4,414 3,517 2,498 3,158 4,656 4,411 3,271 3,370
Creole 1,516 1,786 2,693 2,415 2,386 2,254 2,252 1,956 1,989 3,142
Portuguese 1,015 1,311 1,461 1,229 1,259 1,424 1,540 1,730 2,197 2,856
Other African languages 555 727 720 1,125 2,375 3,512 3,250 2,781 2,452 2,187
Other Southeast Asia languages 691 572 617 403 507 702 742 1,093 1,479 2,100
Vietnamese 1,412 1,782 2,058 2,164 1,709 1,814 1,872 3,062 2,540 1,915
Dari 1,613 2,240 2,705 2,659 2,499 2,062 2,383 2,265 1,868 1,599
Top 25 languages 158,039 188,215 211,912 194,105 188,063 198,215 224,384 214,301 199,306 211,246
Other languages 31,915 39,243 38,727 34,944 33,285 37,610 37,857 37,342 37,448 35,997
Total 189,954 227,458 250,639 229,049 221,348 235,825 262,241 251,643 236,754 247,243
Percentage distribution
Mother Tongue 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
English 10.1 9.8 8.6 8.8 8.2 8.5 9.3 8.7 9.9 11.2
Mandarin 10.7 13.2 13.8 14.4 12.3 14.3 13.3 14.2 11.2 9.8
Arabic 6.6 6.6 6.8 8.1 7.9 7.8 8.1 7.4 8.0 8.0
Tagalog 3.7 3.8 3.8 4.1 4.6 5.6 6.1 6.5 6.8 7.1
Spanish 4.4 4.4 4.2 5.0 4.6 5.2 5.3 6.2 6.4 7.0
Punjabi 6.2 6.0 6.2 5.8 6.7 6.3 5.6 6.5 7.0 6.0
French 4.6 4.5 6.0 6.1 5.9 5.4 5.0 4.9 4.5 3.8
Urdu 2.6 2.5 2.4 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.9 2.9 3.0 3.5
Korean 6.3 4.9 4.2 4.0 4.1 3.8 3.7 3.3 2.9 3.1
Russian 2.9 3.8 3.4 3.9 3.2 3.2 2.3 2.3 2.5 2.5
Chinese 3.2 2.5 2.0 1.9 3.0 2.3 2.2 1.9 2.4 2.5
Farsi 4.7 5.2 3.9 2.8 3.0 2.0 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.2
Hindi 1.1 1.1 2.3 2.2 2.6 2.1 2.0 2.8 2.2 2.2
Tamil 1.2 1.6 1.9 2.1 2.3 2.0 2.3 2.3 2.1 2.0
Gujarati 1.8 1.9 2.0 2.3 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.0 1.9 1.9
German 2.2 2.7 2.9 2.5 2.5 2.2 2.2 2.0 2.1 1.8
Romanian 5.9 2.9 2.3 1.9 2.3 2.4 2.1 2.1 1.9 1.7
Cantonese 1.3 1.2 1.5 1.8 1.5 1.1 1.3 1.8 1.8 1.4
Bengali 1.1 1.2 1.0 0.8 0.8 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.2 1.2
Creole 0.9 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.8 0.7 1.2 1.1
Portuguese 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.5 1.1 1.5 1.2 1.1 1.0
Other African languages 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.9
Other Southeast Asia languages 0.8 0.8 0.8 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0 0.9 0.8 0.8
Vietnamese 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.1 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.8
Dari 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.4 0.8
Top 25 languages 84.0 82.9 82.5 84.4 84.6 84.9 83.8 85.4 85.1 84.3
Other languages 16.0 17.1 17.5 15.7 15.4 15.2 16.2 14.6 14.9 15.7
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

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Date Modified: 2009-08-25

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