Indians, who account for nearly 75 per cent of H1-B visa holders in the US, are the major beneficiaries of this scheme.

In the last 10 years, India has become the leading source of immigration in Canada with more than 118,000 Indians granted "permanent resident", or PR, status last year, which was 27 per cent of total PRs issued.

While most of these Indians are seen across the length and breadth of the country, a large population is still concentrated, and continues to choose Ontario and British Columbia provinces as their home.

Among Canadian provinces, Ontario is most popular among Indians, with more than 55 per cent of the community finding a home in the region that includes cities like Toronto, Ottawa, Waterloo, and Brampton, among others.

Toronto, Canada's largest city and Ontario's capital, is home to almost 600,000 Indo-Canadians.

After Ontario, nearly 22 per cent of Indians are spread across British Columbia cities of Vancouver, Surrey, Kelowna, Victoria, etc, and 10 per cent of them are found in Alberta, followed by Manitoba, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia.

According to the 2021 census, the proportion of Canada's population who reported being Muslim, Hindu and Sikh more than doubled in 20 years.

From 2001 to 2021, these shares rose from 2.0 per cent to 4.9 per cent for Muslims, from 1.0 per cent to 2.3 per cent for Hindus and from 0.9 per cent to 2.1 per cent for Sikhs.

Hinduism is the third-largest religion in Canada, and as of 2021, there were over 828,000 Canadians of the Hindu faith. With 771,790 people, Canada's Sikh population is the largest in the world outside of India.