Chinese Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area
The Chinese Canadian community in the Greater Toronto Area was first established around 1877, with an initial population of two laundry owners. While the Chinese Canadian population was initially small in size, it dramatically grew beginning in the late 1960s due to changes in immigration law and political issues in Hong Kong. Additional immigration from Southeast Asia in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and related conflicts and a late 20th century wave of Hong Kong immigration led to the further development of Chinese ethnic enclaves in the Greater Toronto Area. The Chinese established many large shopping centres in suburban areas catering to their ethnic group. There are 679,725 Chinese in the Greater Toronto Area as of the 2021 census, second only to New York City for largest Chinese community in North America.
Olivia Chow was the first Chinese-Canadian mayor of Toronto following the 2023 Toronto mayoral by-election.
History
In 1877 the first Chinese persons had been recorded in the Toronto city directory; Sam Ching and Wo Kee were laundry business owners. Additional Chinese laundries opened in the next several years. Toronto's earliest Chinese immigrants originated from rural communities of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong, such as Taishan and Siyi, and they had often arrived on the west coast of Canada before coming to Toronto. Many of them worked in small businesses, as merchants, and in working class jobs.In 1885, there were 100 Chinese persons living in Toronto. The Chinese initially settled the York Street-Wellington Street area as Jews and other ethnic groups were moving out of that area. Several Toronto newspapers in the early 20th century expressed anti-Chinese sentiment through their editorials. By 1911, the Chinese population in Toronto reached 1,000. In 1910, the redevelopment of York-Wellington forced many Chinese to relocate to The Ward, the part of Queen Street West between Elizabeth Street and York Street. Less than ten years later redevelopment again forced the Chinese to move once more. This time they settled in the former Jewish housing on Elizabeth Street, which became the first organized Chinatown. The Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 stopped Chinese immigration inflow into Toronto, causing a decline in residents and businesses in the community. The Great Depression augmented the decline in the Chinatown.
By the 1950s and 1960s ethnic Chinese who could speak English fluently have moved out to the suburbs but continued to shop in Chinatown. Many ethnic Chinese began studying in universities in Toronto during these decades. In addition, Chinese immigrants began settling in Toronto once again after the Canadian government opened its doors to Chinese immigrants by adopting a point system immigration selection process in 1967. Many of these immigrants were fluent in English, had skilled jobs and/or were well-educated. They arrived from Hong Kong after the leftist riots in Hong Kong in 1967. Until the 1970s, the Toronto area pan-Chinese community "was small", according to the late Professor Bernard H. K. Luk, author of "The Chinese Communities of Toronto: Their Languages and Mass Media".
Vietnamese Chinese were among the people fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Many of them did not speak Vietnamese. In general most ethnic Chinese originating from Southeast Asia arrived in Canada as refugees.
Around 1980 Toronto's ethnic Chinese population became the largest in Canada with communities in the Old Chinatown and East Chinatown neighbourhoods. Until then, Vancouver had the largest ethnic Chinese population in Canada. Many Hong Kongers immigrated to Toronto in the 1980s and 1990s, partly because of the impending handover of Hong Kong to mainland China in 1997. Canada had resumed allowing independent immigrants into the country in 1985 after a temporary suspension that began in 1982. The Chinese population in the Toronto area doubled between 1986 and 1991. Many of the new arrivals settled in the northern suburbs of North York and Scarborough in the then-Metropolitan Toronto, as well as in Markham and Richmond Hill in York Region. The estimated total number of Hong Kongers who immigrated to the Toronto area from the 1960s to the 1990s was fewer than 200,000.
In 1989, the Chinese Canadian community, along with the City of Toronto, commissioned a monument in order to commemorate the Chinese labourers who helped build the transcontinental railway across Canada in the late 19th century. Situated off Blue Jays Way and Navy Wharf Court, it features a sculpture and two boulders at the base of the sculpture. The boulders originate from the Rocky Mountains, with former employers of the Chinese labourers, Canadian Pacific Railway, providing the boulders.
Retired Senator Vivienne Poy wrote that there were fears of ethnic Chinese expressed in Toronto area media by 1990. There were 240,000 ethnic Chinese living in the Toronto area in 1991.
Between 1979 and 1999, a total of 360,000 immigrants from China, most of them originating from Hong Kong, settled in the GTA. Toronto continued to have the largest Chinese population in Canada in 2000.
By the turn of the 21st century, immigration from Hong Kong has significantly fallen. Mainland China has become the largest source of Chinese immigrants since 2000.
Geographic distribution
Chinese communities include Chinatown, Toronto.According to The Path of Growth for Chinese Christian Churches in Canada by Chadwin Mak, in 1994, there were about 100,000 ethnic Chinese in Scarborough, 65,000 in Downtown Toronto, 60,000 in the eastern portion of the former city of Toronto, 40,000 in North York, and 10,000 in Etobicoke/Downsview. In addition, there were 35,000 in Thornhill/Markham, 30,000 in Oakville/Mississauga, 5,000 in Brampton, 2,000 in Oshawa, and 1,500 in Pickering. The total of Metropolitan Toronto and the other regions combined was 348,500.
By 2012 Markham and Richmond Hill had absorbed many Chinese immigrants.
Demographics
Chinese immigrants include those who immigrated from Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan. Southeast Asia-origin Chinese in Toronto originated from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Other ethnic Chinese immigrants originated from the Caribbean, Korea, South Africa, and South America.As of 2000 there were an estimated 50,000 ethnic Chinese who immigrated from Vietnam living in the Toronto area, making up almost half of the metropolitan area's total number of Vietnamese Canadians.
As of the 2021 census, there were 679,725 Chinese Canadians, making up 10.95% of the total metropolitan area
Language
Varieties of Chinese
Different subgroups of Chinese people in Toronto speak different varieties of Chinese, and differences in language between these subgroups differentiates them. The original Chinese immigrants to Toronto who originated from the Siyi area of Guangdong province spoke the Siyi dialects of Yue Chinese, as well as the Taishanese dialect of Yue; as of 2000 many speakers of the Siyi dialects, including the immigrants and their children, lived in the Toronto Chinatown. As of 2000 the Chinese variety with the largest representation was Metropolitan Cantonese, due to the two major waves of Hong Kong immigration in the 20th century that made Hong Kong Chinese the largest subgroup in Toronto. In the 1990s there were speakers of Cantonese Chinese in the traditional Toronto Chinatown; and also in Agincourt, Willowdale, and other areas in Toronto, as well as Markham and Richmond Hill.Mandarin Chinese gained a significant presence due to immigration from mainland China and Taiwan; In the 1990s, some Mandarin speakers from the mainland and/or speakers of northern Chinese dialects lived in Toronto, Richmond Hill, and Markham. Mandarin speakers from mainland China and Taiwan lived in Willowdale and other parts of northern Toronto. In the 1950s, before large scale Mandarin-speaker immigration occurred, the Toronto Chinese community used Mandarin on an occasional basis.
Other varieties of Chinese, including Hakka, Hokkien, and Min Nan are spoken by ethnic Chinese from various countries. Willowdale and other areas of Northern Toronto had speakers of Taiwanese Min Nan, and speakers of other Chinese varieties lived in other communities in the Toronto area, including Downsview in Toronto and Mississauga.
In 2006, according to Statistics Canada, there were 166,650 in the Greater Toronto Area who had Cantonese as their native language, while there were 62,850 persons who had Mandarin as their native language. By 2009 Mandarin was becoming the dominant variety of Toronto's Chinese community.
Use and prevalence of Chinese
Many Canadian-born Chinese who grew up in Toronto prior to the 1970s are monolingual English-speakers because they were discouraged from learning their parents' native languages. However Canadian-born Chinese growing up in subsequent eras are encouraged to learn Chinese after Canadian society adopted multiculturalism as a key value.The 1996 Canadian census stated that the second largest language group in the Toronto area was people who spoke Chinese.
As of the 1997 Chinese Consumer Directory of Toronto there were 97 computer and software businesses, 20 interpreters and translators, 19 sign makers, and eight paging services. Luk wrote that the figures from the directory "indicate the broad range of Chinese language use" throughout the Toronto Chinese community, in society and in private meetings and transactions, even though the directory was "not exhaustive".
In 2000 Bernard Luk wrote "All in all, a Cantonese-speaker living in Toronto should experience no difficulty meeting all essential needs in her or his own language," and that speakers other varieties of Chinese also have services provided in their varieties although the statement about having all needs met is "less true" for non-Cantonese varieties.