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Byelorussian Canadians (Byelarussians, Belarusians) originate from Belarus and are considered an eastern Slavic people. In 2016, 20,710 Canadians reported themselves as being mainly or partly Byelorussian.

The term “visible minority” is used in statistics to designate racialized (non-white) and non-Indigenous people, as defined by Canadian law. This term includes a number of sub-categories based on ethnicity, race or country of origin.

In the 2016 census, more than 7.67 million Canadians (approximately 22 per cent of the population) described themselves as belonging to a community included in the visible minority category.

Côte-des-Neiges is a Montreal neighbourhood located on the ancestral lands of several Indigenous peoples. Situated on the western slope of Mount Royal, it is part of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Côte-des-Neiges is known for its ethnocultural diversity, due to the numerous cohorts of immigration that have settled there. (See Immigration to Canada.) According to the 2016 census, the neighbourhood has a population of 99,540. Of this number, over 54 per cent belong to racialized groups; approximately 52 per cent are immigrants; 45 per cent are allophones. Côte-des-Neiges is also home to a number of major institutions, such as the Université de Montréal and Saint Joseph’s Oratory.

Canada’s federal multiculturalism policy was adopted in 1971 by Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government. An unexpected by-product of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–69), multiculturalism was intended as a policy solution to manage both rising francophone nationalism, particularly in Quebec (see French-Canadian Nationalism; The Quiet Revolution), and increasing cultural diversity across the country. Canada was the first country in the world to adopt a multiculturalism policy. Federal multiculturalism policy will mark its 50th anniversary in 2021.

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The question of what it means to be a Canadian has been a difficult and much debated one. Some people see the question itself as central to that identity. Canadians have never reached a consensus on a single, unified conception of the country. Most notions of Canadian identity have shifted between the ideas of unity and plurality. They have emphasized either a vision of “one” Canada or a nation of “many” Canadas. A more recent view of Canadian identity sees it as marked by a combination of both unity and plurality. The pluralist approach sees compromise as the best response to the tensions — national, regional, ethnic, religious and political — that make up Canada.