Immigration: Weak Attraction For Rural Canada
Immigrants accounted for 5.3% of the population living in Canada's rural and small town areas in 2006, or 312,555 people. In contrast, immigrants represented about one-quarter of the total population living in census metropolitan areas.
The majority of immigrants who live in the rural zones arrived in Canada before 1986. These established immigrants made up about 70% of all immigrants in rural and small town areas in 2006.
Recent immigrants, those who arrived between 2001 and 2006, tended to settle in the nation's metropolitan areas. Since 2001, 31,075 immigrants who came to Canada chose to live in rural and small town areas. They accounted for only 0.5% of the population in rural areas.
Traditional sources of immigrants (mainly Western and Northern Europe followed by the United States) constituted a higher share of the population across the rural zones of Canada. Large metropolitan areas had a higher share of immigrants from South-East and East Asian countries.
Provincially, the largest share of the immigrant population in rural and small town areas was in British Columbia (12.2%), Ontario (8.1%), Manitoba (6.9%) and Alberta (6.0%), while the lowest share was in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Saskatchewan.
Western provinces had the highest share of recent immigrants in their rural areas. Recent immigrants accounted for 1.7% of the rural population of Manitoba, the largest proportion, followed by British Columbia (0.9%) and Alberta (0.8%).
Within these provinces, the Winkler and Steinbach regions in Manitoba and the Fort McMurray region in Alberta had a relatively high share of recent immigrants in 2006. In the Winkler region, recent immigrants accounted for about 5% of the region's population.
Source:Statistics Canada, June 29, 2009
