{"id":26028,"date":"2019-03-22T19:07:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T19:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/?p=26028"},"modified":"2024-03-16T06:01:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T10:01:45","slug":"how-multicultural-is-toronto-let-us-count-the-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/media-center\/how-multicultural-is-toronto-let-us-count-the-ways\/","title":{"rendered":"How Multicultural Is Toronto? Let Us Count the Ways\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Torontonians often boast about their multiculturalism. It\u2019s enshrined in the City of Toronto\u2019s official motto \u2013 \u201cDiversity Our Strength\u201d \u2013 and observers from Anthony Bourdain<\/a> to Amazon<\/a> have highlighted Toronto\u2019s unique advantage in having so many people here from diverse cultures and backgrounds. BBC Radio in 2016 even crowned Toronto as the most multicultural city<\/a> in the world, after London\u2019s Mayor Sadiq Khan offered up his own city for the title.<\/p>\n

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A bold claim, to be sure. New York, London, Sydney, Los Angeles \u2013 not to mention cities like Singapore, Jerusalem, S\u00e3o Paulo and Mumbai that have multiple, distinct cultural and ethnic communities \u2013 are all exceptionally vibrant, diverse places. But the Toronto Region\u2019s diversity still stands apart in a number of ways.<\/p>\n


For one thing, the proportion of our population that\u2019s foreign born remains higher than just about any major city in the world. In the City of Toronto, 51% of residents were not born in Canada and for the Toronto Region as a whole, that figure is 47%. This is higher than any other metro region in North America, and higher than Greater London, Sydney, Melbourne, Paris, and Amsterdam (see figure below).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only North American cities with higher foreign born rates than Toronto are the Cities of Miami and Miami Beach. Yet unlike the Toronto Region, where just about every corner of the world is represented, more than three quarters of immigrants in Miami hail from Latin America.<\/p>\n

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Source: Statistics Canada, Census 2016; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2016; Eurostat; UK Office for National Statistics; Australian Bureau of Statistics<\/em><\/p>\n

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Over 250 ethnicities and 170 languages are represented in the Toronto Region, and roughly half the population identifies as a visible minority (defined as either Asian, Black, Latin American, or Arab). There are 16 countries that have over 50,000 people represented in the Toronto Region, including 337,000 from India, 300,000 from China, and 200,000 from the Philippines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To put this in perspective, there are more people in the Toronto Region that were born in Asia than there are living in the Cities of San Francisco or Dallas. There are nearly twice as many people living in the Toronto Region that were born in Greece than there are living in Santorini.<\/p>\n

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Source: Statistics Canada, Census 2016<\/em><\/p>\n

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But the numbers only tell part of the story. Spend a bit of time in the Toronto Region and you\u2019ll quickly realize that our multiculturalism is woven into every aspect of our way of life, whether it\u2019s our food, our art, our festivals, or our businesses.<\/p>\n

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Torontonians \u2013 and Canadians as a whole \u2013 value and celebrate diversity like few other places on the planet. As Yung Wu, CEO of Toronto\u2019s MaRS Discovery District<\/a> put it, \u201cCanadians are wired differently. We embrace difference differently. We assimilate differently. We approach change differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Martin Prosperity Institute ranked Canada fourth overall<\/a> and first on Tolerance in its Global Creativity Index, citing Canada\u2019s openness to ethnic and religious minorities and promotion of LGBTQ rights. The index assesses 139 countries around the world based on three dimensions of creative competiveness: technology, talent and tolerance.<\/p>\n

About Multicultural<\/h2>\n

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Our relative strength on all three categories (Canada is also the most educated country<\/a> in the OECD) is proving to be a pivotal asset in today\u2019s economy. Access to talent \u2013 especially a broad array of skills and perspectives that can help boost innovation \u2013 is something all globally competitive companies are looking to leverage. When Booking.com, a world leader in online reservations, was looking for a new office in North America, they settled on Toronto<\/a> in great part because of its multilingual population.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From Toronto, they\u2019re able to provide service in English, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian. The Toronto Region has also become a top destination for clinical trials because of our large, multiracial and multiethnic population, providing an exceptionally diverse subject pool.<\/p>\n

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Whether you\u2019re looking to work, study, play, or create, the Toronto Region allows you to connect to people, places, and ideas from around the world in incredible ways. It makes this one of the most interesting places to live and it helps our businesses grow and thrive. Our region is able to hold onto more of our talent because, simply put, they\u2019re able to find themselves here.<\/p>\n

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Most multicultural city in the world? Yeah, we\u2019ll take it.<\/p>\n

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Torontonians often boast about their multiculturalism. It\u2019s enshrined in the City of Toronto\u2019s official motto \u2013 \u201cDiversity Our Strength\u201d \u2013 and observers from Anthony Bourdain to Amazon have highlighted Toronto\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":25926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[285,295,288],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-insights","category-diversity-equity-inclusion","category-technology"],"acf":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26028"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36835,"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26028\/revisions\/36835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torontoglobal.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}