OTTAWA - He doesn't fit the pasty white profile of "Joe" from the famous Molson Canadian ad that promoted a cool new brand of patriotism, but Victor Wong has a similar message -- with a twist to match the new, more colourful face of Canada.
"In terms of my nationality, I'm Canadian, but in terms of my ethnicity, based on where I personally situate myself, I'm Chinese '' said the second-generation immigrant and executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council.
"That is my mother tongue. It's the cultural group I identify with. In terms of my typical features, others would identify me as a person of Chinese descent.''
According to the latest census data released Wednesday, the number of people who declared themselves Canadian, either alone or in combination with another ancestry as did Wong, actually dropped slightly since the last census.
But declaring oneself "Canadian'' still remains a popular option.
In 2006, 32 per cent of respondents described themselves as all or in part Canadian, slightly less than the 39 per cent who did the same in 2001.
While 18.4 per cent declared themselves full-blooded Canadian, nearly 14 per cent opted for the hyphen.
Regions where people were most likely to declare themselves Canadian tended to be those that were settled the earliest, or have had relatively little recent immigration. More than 60 per cent of Quebecers said they were at least partially Canadian, along with 46 per cent of those in Atlantic Canada.
Statistics Canada analysts say the always fluid concept of ethnicity has become even more complex in a country now made up of 223 different ethnic origins.
"Respondents' understanding or views about their ethnicity, awareness of their family background, number of generations in Canada, the length of time since immigration and the social context at the time of the census can all affect the reporting of ethnicity,'' analysts said in the census report.
The data shows third-generation Canadians -- 90 per cent of them -- are most likely to identify themselves as at least partially Canuck, putting Wong well ahead of the curve.
More than half of the second-generation immigrants reported a European origin. First-generation immigrants were most likely to identify themselves as Chinese, East Indian, Filipino or Vietnamese.
Whether born in Canada or elsewhere, visible minorities often have a tough time shaking off the perception that they are an outsider, says Shahina Siddiqui, president of the Winnipeg-based Islamic Social Services Association.
A Pakistani native who has lived in Canada for the last 33 years, Siddiqui said the "where are you from'' question can be frustrating.
"I reach a point where I say I'm from Charleswood, which is a suburb of Winnipeg,'' she jokes.
"It's important to people still to know where you're from because you look different.''
Siddiqui is also a Muslim and while she said her Canadian-born son doesn't identify with Pakistan, he would use the hyphen to call himself a Muslim-Canadian.
"One is faith, one is geographic identity,'' she said.
Statistics Canada analyst Tina Chui said the census has been collecting information on the ancestral origins of the population for more than 100 years to try to capture the composition of Canada's diverse population.
"We try to measure people's ethnic origins, not whether they are Canadian or not,'' she said.
Some demographic experts have said answering Canadian to the ancestry question on the census is more of a statement of patriotism than a person's true ethnic origin.
Statistics Canada didn't list Canadian as an example until 1996 -- after a public campaign by some media organizations led to a large number of write-in Canadian replies.
In fact, according to a 2005 Statistics Canada analysis, respondents were for years "discouraged from describing their origins as Canadian.''
In 1996, when Canadian was offered as an example of ethnic origin for the first time, some 31 per cent of respondents noted it as their ethnic origin, a massive jump over 1991 when less than four per cent of respondents described their roots that way.
Statistics Canada says it collects data on ethnic origins to meet a widespread demand for it. The Department of Canadian Heritage uses it to administer programs under the Multiculturaism Act. Governments, community groups, ethnic and cultural organizations, school boards, hospitals and researchers all use ethnicity data to assess how people of different backgrounds have integrated into life in Canada.
"Ethnic origin data paints a picture of Canada's multicultural communities and provides some of the most widely requested data from the census,'' said Chui.
University of Western Ontario sociology professor Rod Beaujot said "Canadian'' is meaningless and shouldn't be an option on the census.
"Canadian doesn't really help us with regard to understanding ethnicity,'' he said, recalling the census when the Sun tabloid newspaper chain launched a campaign aimed at getting people to drop the hyphen -- an effort that totally skewed the data.
Canadian also has a different meaning in French, he said.
Whether it's meaningless or not, Australia and the United States -- two more countries built on immigration -- also show an increasing number of people reporting a national ethnicity.
According to the 2006 Australian census, 37 per cent of the population reported Australian as their ethnic ancestry. Nearly 20 million people, about seven per cent of the population, reported American as their ethnic ancestry in the 2006 American Community Survey.
