Ottawa, Oct 31: India, China, Pakistan and the Philippines remained the top four suppliers of immigrants to Canada last year, said a government report released today. Canada gave permanent resident status to 229,091 foreign nationals last year, according to the annual report of citizenship and immigration Canada.
That is down from 250,484 in 2001.
China topped the list with 33,231 (14.51 percent of the total), down from 40,315 (16.09 percent) in 2001; India sent 28,515 migrants (12.58 percent) to Canada, compared to 27,848 (11.12 percent) in 2001; while the number of Pakistanis settling in Canada dropped to 14,164 (6.18 percent) from 15,341 (6.12 percent) and the number of Filipinos dropped to 11,000 (4.8 percent) from 12,914 (5.16 percent).
The number of Americans settling across the border slipped to 5,288 (2.31 percent) from 5,902 (2.36 percent) while the top European supplier of immigrants for Canada was Romania -- 5,692 (2.48 percent), virtually unchanged from the previous year.
For the first time, the number of immigrants arriving without any working knowledge of English or French outnumbered immigrants who spoke either.
Bureau Report