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OTTAWA — The debut of Canada’s controversial census replacement survey shows there are more foreign-born people in the country than ever before, at a proportion not seen in almost a century.

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They’re young, they’re suburban, and they’re mainly from Asia, although Africans are arriving in growing numbers.

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But the historical comparisons are few and far between in the National Household Survey, which Statistics Canada designed — at Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s behest — to replace the cancelled long-form census of the past.

The new survey of almost three million people shows that Canada is home to 6.8 million foreign-born residents — or 20.6 per cent of the population, compared with 19.8 per cent in 2006, and the highest in the G8 group of rich countries.