Chinese numbers in Vancouver, Toronto to double by 2031

The Chinese populations of Vancouver and Toronto are set to double by 2031, helping push whites below 50 per cent of the population in both cities, says a report for Canada's immigration department.

The study, released this week, is titled "A new residential order?". It predicted that the populations in both cities would be more prone to segregate into racial enclaves with time.

Daniel Hiebert, a geographer at the University of British Columbia, concluded his report by saying that the two cities "are likely to have a social geography that is entirely new to Canadian society". He said the degree of racial segregation in both cities would approach that of between blacks and whites in America.

Both cities have a long history of immigrant populations, but it was only in the late 1990s that they developed what Hiebert called "ethnocultural enclaves" and a "new residential order".

Such enclaves are typified by the Vancouver satellite of Richmond, where ethnic Chinese already outnumber the white population, creating the most Chinese city in North America.

The study, which compares the 2006 census results with projections for 2031, forecasts massive population growth in both cities. It forecasts a growth of 67 per cent for Toronto and 60 per cent for Vancouver - mainly due to immigration and "the fertility of immigrants". As a result, the percentage of Toronto and Vancouver residents with a family history in Canada that harks back to their grandparents' generation would fall to just 20 and 27 per cent respectively.