What does it mean to say one in four Canadians have come to the country as an immigrant, assuming that far fewer are Native Americans?

Question

Follow up question: at what generation are you no longer an immigrant: is second generation immigrant a contradiction?

In: 1

Answer 1

An immigrant is someone who were born outside the country but then moved into the country during their lifetime. The kids of immigrants are not considered immigrants. Most of the immigrants to Canada are from developed countries so you would not notice most of them.

Answer 2

It means that about 25% of people living in Canada (as citizens or permanent residents) were not born in Canada.

Per the last census, there are 36.9 million people living in Canada, and 8.3 million of them were not born in Canada. By far the most common place of birth among Canadian immigrants is Asia – fully half of those 8.3 million people were born in Asia, 900,000 from India alone and 700,000 from China.

Answer 3

Yes, “second generation immigrant” is a contradiction, but it is also a useful term to highlight that children of immigrants are often different from people whose families have been in Canada for several generations. For example, a child of immigrants might not speak English or French at home, which can make it more difficult to learn those languages.