Ottawa: Canadian census data released today shows that the number of minorities, including Indians, in the country has surpassed the 5 million mark for the first time in history. They now represent 16.2 per cent of Canada's population.

The total minority population skyrocketed by 27 per cent between 2001 and 2006,due in large part to the influx of South Asian and Chinese immigrants, according to the census.

South Asians from such countries as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka now slightly outnumber the Chinese. The last time the census was taken in 2001 people of Chinese descent were the largest minority group.

Statistics Canada predicts one in five Canadians will be a member of a minority group by 2017,when the country turns 150 years old.

Nearly 1.3 million people identified themselves as South Asian in the 2006 census, a 38 per cent jump over 2001,and they now account for a quarter of all minorities in Canada.

Just over one million people identify themselves as Chinese, and comprise about another quarter of the country's minority population. That marks an 18 per cent increase over 2001 and accounts for 24 per cent of the minority population, and 3.9 per cent of the total population.

Blacks, Filipinos, Latin Americans, Arabs, Southeast Asians, West Asians, Koreans and Japanese round out the Top 10 minority groups, a list that is relatively unchanged since 2001.

Source : PTI