Indian Canadians

Indian Canadians (or Indo-Canadians) are Canadians who have ancestry from India. The term East Indian is sometimes used to avoid confusion with Indigenous groups. Categorically, Indian Canadians comprise a subgroup of South Asian Canadians which is a further subgroup of Asian Canadians. As of the 2021 census, Indians are the largest non-European ethnic group in the country and form the fastest growing national origin in Canada.

Canada contains the world's ninth-largest Indian diaspora. The highest concentrations of Indian Canadians are found in Ontario and British Columbia, followed by growing communities in Alberta and Quebec as well, with the majority of them being foreign-born.

In Canada, 'South Asian' refers to persons with ancestry throughout South Asia, while 'East Indian' means someone with origins specifically from India. Both terms are used by Statistics Canada, who do not use 'Indo-Canadian' as an official category for people. Originating as a part of the Canadian government's multicultural policies and ideologies in the 1980s, 'Indo-Canadian' is a term used in mainstream circles of people in Canada as of 2004.

In 1962, 'Pakistani' and 'Ceylonese' (Sri Lankan) were made into separate ethnic categories, while prior to that year people with those origins were counted as being 'East Indian'. As of 2001 about half of foreign-born persons claiming an 'East Indian' ancestry originated from India, while others originated from Bangladesh, East Africa, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Elizabeth Kamala Nayar, author of The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver: Three Generations Amid Tradition, Modernity, and Multiculturalism, defined 'Indo-Canadians' as persons born in Canada of Indian subcontinent origins. Kavita A. Sharma, author of The Ongoing Journey: Indian Migration to Canada, wrote that she used 'Indo-Canadians' to only refer to those of origins from India who have Canadian citizenship. Otherwise she uses "Indo-Canadian" in an interchangeable manner with 'South Asians' and 'East Indians'. Priya S. Mani, the author of "Methodological Dilemmas Experienced in Researching Indo-Canadian Young Adults’ Decision-Making Process to Study the Sciences," defined "Indo-Canadian" as being children of persons who immigrated from South Asia to Canada. Exploring brown identity, Widyarini Sumartojo, in a PhD thesis, wrote that, while "'South Asian'...refers to a broader group of people, it is often used somewhat interchangeably with 'East Indian' and 'Indo-Canadian.'"

Despite the diversity in ethnic groups and places of origin among South Asians, previously the term 'South Asian' had been used to be synonymous with 'Indian'. The Canadian Encyclopedia stated that the same population has been "referred to as South Asians, Indo-Canadians or East Indians," and that people referred to as 'South Asian' view the term in the way that those from European countries might view the label 'European.'" According to Nayar, "Many Canadian-born South Asians dislike the term because it differentiates them from other Canadians." Martha L. Henderson, author of Geographical Identities of Ethnic America: Race, Space, and Place, argued that the 'South Asian' term "is meaningful as a defining boundary only in interactions between South Asians and mainstream Canadians." Henderson added that, because of the conflation of 'South Asian' and 'Indian', "[i]t is very difficult to isolate the history of Asian Indians in Canada from that of other South Asians."

The Indo-Canadian community began to form around the late 19th century, pioneered by men, the great majority of whom were Punjabi Sikhs—primarily soldiers of the Sikh Regiment and Punjab Regiment but also from farming backgrounds—with some Punjabi Hindus and Punjabi Muslims, and many of whom were veterans of the British Indian Army. Canada was part of the British Empire, and since India was also under British rule, Indians were also British subjects. In 1858, Queen Victoria had proclaimed that, throughout the Empire, the people of India would enjoy "equal privileges with white people without discrimination of colour, creed or race."

Based on the 1871 Canadian census, a 2025 study revealed that Indians were present in Eastern Canada since the country’s founding, as the census identified 11 people of Indian origin, with 8 persons from Ontario, and the remaining 3 from Nova Scotia. The early presence in Ontario and Nova Scotia demonstrates that Indians were part of Canadian society decades earlier than previously recognized, and in regions outside the well-known Pacific migration routes to British Columbia. The largest number of people lived in Rochester Township (now part of Lakeshore, Ontario), in an area with a significant Black settlement.