Author Description

This article summarizes findings from the research paper entitled: The Initial Destinations and Redistribution of Canada's Major Immigrant Groups: Changes over the Past Two Decades. In 1981, about 58% of immigrants who had come to Canada in the previous 10 years lived in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montréal; by 2001, this had increased to 74% (Statistics Canada 2003), triggering debate on the merits of a more 'balanced geographic distribution of immigrants' (Citizenship and Immigration Canada-CIC 2001). Policies aimed at directing immigrants away from major gateway cities in many western countries have focused on the choice of initial destination, and little effort has been made to affect subsequent mobility. But such policies will work only if other, non-gateway regions, can keep immigrants or maintain balanced in- and out-migration. To this end, this study examines how Canada's major immigrant groups arriving over the past two decades have altered their geographic concentration through time, comparing immigrants arriving in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, in the concentration levels of their initial destinations, and in their subsequent geographic dispersal. It pays attention to the dispersal pattern of groups whose initial settlements were influenced by government policies and questions the role of pre-existing immigrant communities in geographic distribution.