STATISTICAL PROFILE OF IMMIGRANTS OF VIETNAMESE ORIGIN IN QUEBEC AND IN CANADA:

Following the numerous political and socio-economic upheavals affecting Southeast Asia at the close of the Vietnam War in 1975, more than one million Vietnamese left their homeland to find refuge and security abroad. For its part, Canada as a receiving country opened its doors to tens of thousands of these refugees. Of this exodus the greatest number was Vietnamese. Indeed from 1979 to 1980 nearly 44,000 Vietnamese-born took residence in Canada, some 17 per cent of the arrivals to Canada during that period. Correspondingly, from 1984 to 1985, Vietnamese counted for some eleven per cent of new arrivals. In contrast, during the 1990s, fewer than five per cent of all arrivals were of Vietnamese origin. For example, in 1994, about 6,400 Vietnamese, or some three per cent of the total immigration that year, immigrated to Canada. Later, from 1996 through 2001, only 11,000 Vietnamese arrived as permanent residents. These latter newcomers arrived principally within the framework of family reunification programs. It can thus be determined that a certain number of immigrants of Vietnamese origin are recent arrivals. As a matter of fact, almost 22 per cent of those living in Canada at the time of the 2001 national census had arrived in 1991-2001. Some 31 per cent arrived between 1981 an