just to make the point that i'm not making this problem up here's the abstract of who are the canadians changing census responses canadian ethnic studies journal spring by monica boyd doug norris at the close of the twentieth century canadian has become the fastest growing ethnic origin group up from percent in to nearly percent in and to percent in the census of canada from what groups did this indigenous label draw in the five years between the and the censuses using unpublished tabulations from the and canadian censuses this paper traces temporal shifts for a cohort of the canadian born age in and age by we find that most of the increases between and in canadian ethnic origin responses are accompanied by intercensal losses in british origin responses between and increasing canadian responses went hand in hand with dramatic losses in both the british and french ethnic origin counts in some provinces notably the prairie provinces of alberta manitoba and saskatchewan shifts also occurred out of other ethnic groups