Sri Lankans in Canada Part 2: A Sociological Examination

Please refer the part I of this article in our April 2024 issue

With this historical background of the Sri Lankans in Canada, I propose to examine some selected demographic characteristics with special reference to self-declared ethnic identification.

A Demographic Perspective:

The following section presents a comparative analysis of selected socio-demographic variables in the 1991 and 2001 Canadian census data pertaining to the people of Sri Lankan origin in Canada. A discussion of Canadian census data serves several important purposes for my analysis. First and foremost, 1991 and 2001 Census data portray a basic quantitative picture of the people of Sri Lankan origin. This picture was important for any pioneering study as it revealed the types of identities and the socio-economic location of the people in question. Given that there were no publicly available major quantitative or qualitative studies on the Sri Lankan population at the time of launching the present research project, it was nothing but logical for the researcher to examine the Canadian census data as a point of departure.

The 1991 Canadian census revealed three types of ethnic identities the people of Sri Lankan origin had created or presented in Canada. The 2001 census added a new identity type as Canadian. The 50 respondents in the sample examined in this paper (1994-95) fell under six identity types. Although the size of the population/sample studied at three different times was not identical, the observed types reflect an overall process of identity formation over a 10-year period by this group. The two Canadian Census reports and the empirical data of 50 respondents made it crystal clear that underlining the self-perceived identifications such as Sri Lankan, Sri Lankan Canadian, Tamil Canadian etc. are the original distinction of Sinhalese and Tamil ethnicities. Although the Canadian Census data identified a category as Sinhalese, it was not the case with the empirical sample. However, what is discerning is that about 5% of the population identified as Sri Lankans in both Canadian Census reports and about 80% of those who identified as Sri Lankan-Canadians in the empirical data sample were in fact Sinhalese language speakers. This could be a situation where ethnicity and nationhood overlap. The Sinhalese who claimed a superior status (to the Tamils) within the nation of Sri Lanka would have simply brought that over to the Canadian context by presenting themselves as Sri Lankans or Sri Lankan-Canadians.

Published Canadian census data subsumed Sri Lankans under a broader category of South Asians. Therefore, a special computer program of 1991 and 2001 Census Canada data was done mainly for the purpose of separating the data pertaining to people of Sri Lankan origin. During the decade of 1991-2001, the total Sri Lankan origin population experienced a dramatic increase from 48595 to 106,375, (nearly 118%). This phenomenal increase called for a comparison of the two census periods in terms of selected demographic characteristics such as ethnic identification, language, religion, provincial distribution, age-sex distribution, marital status and education. No public data was available for income distribution in 2001. This comparison of some selected demographic variables revealed that the distribution patterns in 1991 were similar to that of 2001 in respect of some variables, and dissimilar in respect of other variables.

1991 Census Canada reported 48,595 persons as people of Sri Lankan origin. This figure included the persons who identified themselves as Sinhalese(1,455 or 3%), Tamil (15,700 or 32%) and Sri Lankans (31,430 or 65%) (Statistics Canada 1991). Primarily, this population was comprised of Canadian landed immigrants and citizens who had made a firm commitment to settle down in Canada. Sri Lankan students, refugees and those who were waiting for documents for permanent residency were not counted in the 1991 Census. While there were 32 percent of Tamil speaking Sri Lankans, the Sinhalese speakers were only 3 percent. In order to fully understand the composition of the 31,430 (65%) people who identified themselves as Sri Lankans, it was necessary to examine their first language and religion.

If the reader is looking for detailed information about ethnic identification, religion, language, age/sex distribution, sex ratio, marital distribution, provincial distribution and annual income, you must contact the writer at lokuappu17@gmail.com.

The demographic data not presented in this article provides a hint as to whether there was a social class factor intersecting with the ethnicity of the Sri Lankan groups under examination. If we use income, education, and occupation as indicators of social class for the present study, it may not be hard to see marked differences between the Sinhalese and the Tamils/Sri Lankans. Those who identified as Sri Lankns were in most instances, Tamil language speakers. Almost 15% of the Sinhalese seemed to have an annual income over $40,000 compared to only 4% of the Tamils and Sri Lankans combined, having a similar income in 1991. Among the Sinhalese, 32% had university or college education while only 22% of the other two groups combined had a similar education. In the area of occupation, the Sinhalese had 78% labour force participation and the other two groups were only 70%. The unemployment rate for the Sinhalese was 8% while for the other two groups, it was 21%. In the sample studied in this paper, a similar income pattern has been observed with 13% (most of them Sinhalese speakers) earning between $36,000 and $60,000 per annum. Ornstein’s study in 2000 based on 1996 census data clearly identified Tamils and Sri Lankans as a group falling under the lowest income category in Toronto.

The above discussion calls for a follow- up study of this population in terms of its changing

demographic features and cultural manifestations.

The following section is focussed on certain observed and reported changes to the people of Sri Lankan origin in Canada after 2001.

PART III:

Revisiting Sri Lankan-Canadians: 2001-2021.

A twenty-year period between 2001 and 2021, has added a vast number of Sri Lankan

origin people to the Canadian population. The number of Tamil refugees increased dramatically

due to the on-going armed conflict in the country, and other ethnic groups came to Canada on

different types of visa.

The patterns of the population increase of Sri Lankans in Canada is noteworthy.

According to the Canadian census, as reported by Amarasingham (2013)

based on his special tabulations, 2006 Canadian census has reported 138,130 people choosing

either Sri Lankan (103,550) or Tamil (34,580) as their ethnic origin. It is further reported that

during 2001-2006, 16,200 Sri Lankansand 5145 Tamils have migrated to Canada.

Unfortunately, the author does not have access to any special tabulations of other Sri Lankan

ethnicities (Sinhalese, Muslims and others) in Canada in the same census to do a comparison.

It is surmised that other Sri Lankan ethnicities are tabulated under the category “Sri Lankans”.

According to Census data tables for 2016, 128,915 people from Sri Lanka had been admitted to

Canada during 1980-2016 of which 55,195 were refugees. The family sponsored immigrants

were 42,290 and economic migrants were 28,045. Most of these Sri Lankan immigrants

(92,000) have arrived in Canada between 2001 and 2016. By “admission” category is meant to

include people who had been granted for the first time the right to live in Canada permanently

by immigration authorities.

This criterion seems to make a better sense in counting people of Sri Lankan origin compared to

other criteria like self-declared ethnic origin, mother tongue and language frequently spoken at

home.

The year 2009 is depicted as a political and economical turning point for Sri Lanka

as the 26-year internecine armed conflict came to an end with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers

who are considered by 32 countries as a terrorist group. The US government, under the Anti-

Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 designated the LTTE as a “foreign terrorist

organization” . The European Union also listed LTTE on their list of terrorist organizations as

per the Council Common Position 2009/67/CPSP. It was re-listed in 2011 after a review of the

listed terrorist organizations. A new attempt has been made by certain sympathizers of the

banned LTTE and specifically, the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) to apply

pressure on the governments to lift the banon the LTTE In, UK.

The Tamil speaking diaspora in countries like Great Britain, Canada, the United States and

Australia continued to support the Tamil Tigers financially during the armed conflict.

The armed struggle which rendered civilian life unbearable all throughout the Island triggered a

massive migration movement of the Sinhalese, Muslims, and the Tamils to Canada. Of all Sri

Lankan origin ethnicities in Canada, the Tamils have organized themselves economically,

socially, culturally, and politically. Today, two of them represent Scarborough ridings at the

Ontario Legislative Assembly while one has won a seat in the federal parliament.

The Tamils of Sri Lankan origin living in Canada have reached the stage of its second generation

(Canadian-born members) and they, as a collectivity, accomplished the “Institutional

Completeness” in many respects (Breton R:1964). They have their financial institutions, cultural

centres, federal and provincial political representation, micro and macro level business

enterprises and religious centres.

Sociologically speaking, the most remarkable of all these developments for me are their

political ideologies and strategies which are vivid and multiphasic.

Having come to Canada as a group of immigrants during the past 50 years, the

mileage that the Tamils have gone is not visible among many immigrant groups emanating from

non-traditional source countries except for the immigrants representing the Sikh diaspora.

According to Amarasingham “the Tamil diaspora, for the most part, did not have an enviable

reputation in governmental and policy circles, and is widely believed to have been overly radical

and fundamentally corrosive to the prospects for peace in Sri Lanka” (2013, 1). Some

reviewers of Tamil politics in Canada such as Vimalarajan and Cheran (2010) point out that the

post-war Tamil politics experienced a breakdown in its continuity at the national and

international levels. A need for rethinking of new strategies for justice and sovereignty is very

much contemplated.

For a thought provoking political analysis of the post-war Tamil diasporain Canada the reader

must follow the writings of Amarnath Amarasingham (2013, 2015 and 2016). What is being

reiterated in the Tamil diaspora discourse is that the idea of a unitary state for Sri Lanka needs

to be abandoned and the search for justice and peace must be reframed as an issue

between two nations (Sinhala and Tamil) which can only be resolved via a two-nation solution-

Sri Lanka vs Eelam.

It is stated by several writers that the post-war Tamil diaspora struggles had always met with

leadership conflicts. Finally by about July 2009, a new organization titled Transnational

Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) was established. This is precisely a “government in exile.”

run with a cabinet and 115 country-specific elected representatives.

The continued interest in a separate state within Sri Lanka promoted by the organizations like

TGTE has not met with 100% approval rate from the moderate Tamil diaspora members. The

majority of other ethnic groups like the Sinhalese, Muslims and Burghers have not supported

this proposal at all. A major instrument that the TGTE has utilized is to argue that there has

been an on-going Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka since 1948. The Tamil MPP Vijay Thanigasalam

has been a strong proponent of this at the Ontario Parliament level through the bill 104 (2018).

A few mayors like Patrick Brown of the city of Bramption and John Tory of the city of Toronto

have fully embraced and endorsed this idea of Tamil genocide by proclaiming May the 18^th as

the Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day. Many attempts have been made to get the Canadian

Federal Government to accept this concept and to declare Sri Lanka a genocidal state by

sympathisers of TGTE. However, no positive responses are seen in any official records of the

Canadian Federal Government.

The other Sri Lankan ethnicities have also formed social organizations such as alumni

associations, Buddhist temple-based societies, and civic societies like the “Sinhala Sangamaya”.

Many non-Tamil community organizations have shown an inclination towards social

interactions, reviving past memories and fundraising for and helping institutions in the

motherland. The only exception appears to be the Sri Lanka United National Association

(SLUNA), which was established to fight negative Tamil diaspora propaganda against Sri Lanka.

During the past two years, two new organizations namely, the Sri Lanka Action

Coalition and the Canadian-Sri Lankan Centre for Social Harmony (CSLCSH) came into being

to fight negative propaganda and to promote inter-ethnic harmony among all Canadians. In

general, the Tamil organizations have been more politically. oriented and active than the

Sinhalese and other community organizations. According to some informants, the people of

Sinhalese origin have been more distant from “home-land” issues and strived hard to establish

themselves as “Canadians” while showing some concern about on-going political issues in Sri

Lanka. A vast majority of Canadian-born Sinhalese origin children have shown a radical

departure from learning, promoting or practising Sinhala culture including Sinhala language in

Canada except for the continuation of consuming Sri Lankan spicy meals. More inter-ethnic

marriages are seen among the Canadian-born Sinhalese youth than among the Canadian-born

Tamil youth. It is clear that the Non-Tamil Sri Lankans in Canada have shown a tendency to

“integrate” into the multicultural Canadian society or to the cultural mosaic rather than

maintaining their own “home-land” identity. The classic example is the naming of Canadian-

born children with Western or European names such as Brian and, Tracey.

Conclusion:

At this juncture, it is worthwhile placing the Sri Lanka immigrants within the broader Canadian

social context to examine where they are placed in relation to similar immigrantgroups

from non-traditional source countries and the rest of the Canadian society.

According to a longitudinal survey of immigrants to Canada (Statistics Canada: 2006) between

October 2000 and September 2001, an estimated 164,200 immigrants over 15 years of age had

landed in Canada from foreign countries as landed immigrants. The majority of these

immigrants have come from Asian and Middle Eastern countries. It is observed that 67% of

these immigrants belonged to the economic class. Over 55% of them have reported having

university degrees. This proportion was higher among those who were aged between 25 and 44

years (69%). The Canadian-born population of the same age group reported only 22% with

university degrees.

The Sri Lankan immigrants fall in line with this pattern as discussed above (Table 17). The Sri

Lankans have also followed a pattern very similar to other immigrants (74%) in terms of settling

down initially in three major metropolitan areas: Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. In contrast,

only 26% of Canadian-born people had done so. For immigrants, the rationale behind this

residential patternrelates to finding relatives or friends, and employment prospects in these

major cities. About 70% of these immigrants have been in the labour force at the time of this

survey and 44% of them have found jobs within six months of their arrival in Canada. Ability to

use English or French has been a major contributory factor for early entry into the labour

market. Still about 33% of them had not arrived in Canada with required language fluency,

An interesting study conducted in 2008 (Kazemipur A. 2008) on social capital of Immigrants and

Native-Born Canadians indicates that ‘immigrants seem to be adding to the overall stock of

social capital in Canada in the areas of confidence in public institutions-such as judiciary,

government, police, welfare system, education and health care and involvement in religious

activities” (p14). By social capital is meant to include resources embedded in communities.

Using 45 variables categorized into 15 broader groupings, the author has applied the Principal

Component Analysis (PCA) to arrive at conclusions.

It is also seen that the immigrants fall behind certain areas of social capital including social

interaction with the host society-trust, neighbourliness, social networks, group activities and

engagement with private sector. A higher level of confidence in public institutions is seen as a

positive factor.

Looking at the Tamil Sri Lankans, one can surmise that they are far ahead of other Sri Lankan

ethnicities in Canada regarding social capital formation and maintenance.

The most recent studies on immigrants to Canada raise some alarming signals about their

economic patterns. Sheila and Grace Galabuzi in their 2018 study of “persistent Inequality” of

Ontario’s Colour-Coded Labour Market argue that although racialized workers in Ontario had a

slightly higher labour force participation rate (65.3%) than non-racialized workers (64.5%), the

racialized women show the highest unemployment rate at 10%, followed by racialized men at

8.7% and non-racialized workers at 7%. Referring to the income disparities, the authors indicate

that in 2015, racialized men had earned 76 cents for every dollar non-racialized men earned.

For racialized women it had been 85 cents. The study asserts that there is a need “ for Ontario

to deal with the uncomfortable truth that its labour market is not equally welcoming to all

immigrants. ……Differences in immigrants’ outcomes are not based only on education levels

and language skills, but also on racialization” (p.5).

The above studies call for a fresh look at the people of Sri Lankan origin with a view to

ascertaining how they have fared in the Canadian society during the past 25 years.

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