Canada's Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census: Canada's major census metropolitan areas

Montréal: Third largest visible minority population

The 2006 Census enumerated 590,400 people who belonged to a visible minority in the census metropolitan area of Montréal, the third largest visible minority population in Canada, after Toronto and Vancouver. Of all visible minorities living in Canada, 11.6% lived in Montréal, 42.9% in Toronto and 17.3% in Vancouver.

Montréal's visible minorities accounted for 16.5% of the census metropolitan area's population, up from 13.5% in 2001 and 12.2% in 1996. The proportion in 2006 was slightly above the national level of 16.2% and the provincial level of 8.8%, but below the proportions recorded in Toronto (42.9%) and in four other census metropolitan areas.

The visible minority population in Montréal grew by 28.8% between 2001 and 2006. In contrast, the total population in the census metropolitan area grew by 5.4% over the same period.

Immigration was largely responsible for the growth of the visible minority population. In 2006, Montréal was home to the second largest group of recent immigrants in Canada, after Toronto, and close to two-third (64.8%) of recent immigrants were members of a visible minority group.

Home to largest number of Arab visible minorities

The census enumerated almost 100,000 Arabs visible minorities in Montréal in 2006, accounting for 37.2% of all Arabs in Canada. They represented 2.8% of Montréal's total population, and 16.7% of all visible minorities in Montréal.

Arabs formed one of the fastest growing visible minority groups in Montréal—the number of Arab visible minorities increased by 45.8% since 2001. About seven in 10 Arabs were foreign-born; most of them born in Morocco, Lebanon or Algeria.

While Montréal was home to the largest number of Arab visible minorities in Canada, the largest visible minority group in the census metropolitan area was Black. The 2006 Census enumerated about 169,100 Blacks in Montréal. This group made up nearly three in 10 (28.6%) of Montréal's visible minorities and over one-fifth (21.6%) of all Blacks in Canada.

An estimated 55.9% of Blacks in Montréal were foreign-born. Among them, over one-half (55.4%) were born in Haiti.

Latin American was the third largest visible minority group in Montréal. With an estimated 75,400 individuals in 2006, they accounted for 2.1% of the census metropolitan area's population.

A majority (71.8%) of Latin American visible minorities in Montréal were born outside Canada. Of those who were foreign-born, over one-quarter (28.5%) arrived in Canada between 2001 and 2006 and one-third (33.5%) came in the 1990s. The top five countries of birth were El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, Mexico and Chile.

Chinese (72,000), South Asian (70,600), Southeast Asian (45,000) and Filipino (23,500) were other visible minority groups that each represented between 1% and 2% of the Montréal census metropolitan area's total population.

Majority of visible minorities lived in the City of Montréal

Montréal's largest municipality, the City of Montréal, was also home to the largest number of visible minorities. In 2006, an estimated 414,800 visible minorities lived in the city itself. They accounted for seven in 10 (70.3%) of all visible minorities in the census metropolitan area of Montréal. In comparison, 44.4% of the total population in the Montréal census metropolitan area lived in the City of Montréal in 2006.

While the largest number of visible minorities in the census metropolitan area lived in the City of Montréal, the municipality of Brossard had the largest proportion of visible minorities. In 2006, over one-third (34.4%) of Brossard's population belonged to a visible minority. It was followed by Dollard-des-Ormeaux (30.9%), the City of Montréal (26.0%), Mont-Royal (19.7%) and Dorval (19.1%).

In most municipalities, Black was the largest visible minority group, followed by Arab or Latin American. But Chinese and South Asian were the largest visible minority groups in Brossard, Pointe-Claire and Kirkland.

In 2006, more than 200 different ethnic origins were reported by residents of the census metropolitan area of Montréal. Canadian (1.7 million) and French (937,000) were the two most common ethnic ancestries reported either alone or in combination with other origins. It was followed by Italian, Irish, English, Scottish, Haitian, Chinese, German and North American Indian origins.

Among those who reported Canadian, French, Irish, English, Scottish or North American Indian as their ethnic origin (total responses), around nine in 10 were born in Canada. In contrast, 69.7% of those who reported Chinese origin were born outside Canada, as were 54.1% of those with Haitian origin, 29.6% of those with Italian origin and 20.3% of those with German origin.

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