NICHOLAS KEUNG
STAFF REPORTER (博讯boxun.com)

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   When Qu Tao first came to Canada from China in 1988, he rarely heard anyone speak in his native Mandarin. Most Chinese immigrants hailed from Hong Kong and spoke only Cantonese.

   Today, when the 40-year-old engineer travels across Greater Toronto, he often bumps into people on the streets, in shopping malls and grocery stores chatting in his mother tongue.

   It is no coincidence.

   According to data from the 2001 census released by Statistics Canada yesterday, mainland China has become Canada's prime immigrant source, with 136,135 Mandarin-speaking people in the Greater Toronto Area claiming it as their birthplace. That moves them ahead of their 110,735 Cantonese-speaking compatriots from Hong Kong.

   Chinese was the largest visible-minority group in Canada, surpassing the 1 million mark for the first time, the census shows. They make up 3.5 per cent of the country's population and 26 per cent of the visible-minority population.

   A total of 409,500 Chinese lived in Greater Toronto — which includes Toronto and Peel, York, Halton and Durham regions — in 2001, up from 242,300 a decade earlier. They accounted for 9 per cent of the area's population, up from 6 per cent in 1991, but still far less than the 17 per cent in Vancouver. Immigrants from China also accounted for 6.7 per cent of the GTA's total immigrant population.

   "Ten years ago when you spoke in Mandarin, no one could understand you," said Qu, a Beijing native who now works as a nuclear reactor engineer. "Now when you go to Chinatown and the Chinese malls, people are talking in Mandarin and they serve you in Mandarin."

   By choosing Markham as his home, Qu has helped put the community on the map as one of the most ethnically diverse in Canada. It experienced a huge leap in its visible-minority composition — from 46 per cent in 1996 to 56 per cent in 2001 — second only to Richmond, B.C., with 59 per cent. Three in 10 people in Markham were Chinese in 2001.

   People of colour represented 43 per cent of Toronto's population, while they accounted for 40 per cent in each of Richmond Hill, Mississauga and Brampton.

   Canada's multiculturalism is what lures many new immigrants to this country.

   "This is a free and democratic country. It's nice that not only can my children learn French and English, they can go to school to learn about Mandarin and their Chinese heritage," said Liu Fang, a mother of two who came to Toronto from Beijing two years ago to join her computer-engineer husband.

   "Canada is a clean, safe and peace-loving country. It has a good education system and can offer my children a better future."

   The first major wave of Chinese immigration to Canada occurred in the late 1800s, when Chinese labourers were brought here to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway in Western Canada. But for decades following the railway's completion, Chinese immigration was discouraged through restrictive policies.

   A flood of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong arrived in the late 1980s and early '90s, fearing the return of the little island to communist China in 1997. There were also those from China who were granted special permission after China's violent crackdown on democracy in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

   Toronto immigration consultant Alice Wu, whose company has offices in five Chinese cities, said China's open-market foreign policy has exposed potential immigrants to the outside world, and Canada's immigration system makes it possible for professionals working in mainland China to come here as independent immigrants.

   "It doesn't really surprise me that China is replacing Hong Kong as the leading immigrant source in Canada," Wu said. "Those who were qualified to immigrate to Canada had all left Hong Kong before 1997 and now it's the turn for those from mainland China."

   The demographic change is also evident in the dramatic membership growth of the Toronto-based Chinese Professionals Association of Canada. Membership has ballooned from less than 800 five years ago to about 13,000 today.

   Qu said professional immigrants like himself can play a key role in bridging the cultural and language gap between Canada and China, which is considered one of the world's fastest-growing markets.

   "These new immigrants have the knowledge, the language and the contacts of how things work in China. They can help open the door for a lot of Canadian business given the right opportunity," he said. "China has joined the World Trade Organization and the Chinese immigrants here would be the best ambassadors for Canada."

   With the growth of the mainland population here, Mandarin-specific services offered by social agencies are struggling to keep pace, said Simon Zhong, executive director of the Toronto Community and Cultural Centre, a settlement and employment agency catering to immigrants from China.

   "Those from mainland China have specific needs from their counterparts from Hong Kong. Despite their professional training, most of these people from China were not educated in English and face a huge language barrier when they come to Canada. Most of them have a tough time trying to find a decent job that fits their education and work experience," Zhong said.

   "All it means is it will take these immigrants an even longer time to integrate into society and be a contributing member to this country." (博讯boxun.com)