of Hongkongers who migrated to Canada prior to the handover returning to the territory during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Many of those who returned to the territory did so for financial opportunities. The resulting "reverse migration" saw the number of Hong Kong-born Canadian residents drop between 1996 and 2011. However the trend reversed again during the 2010s, with the number of Hong Kong-born Canadians living in Canada increasing between 2011 and 2016 Canadian census. Hong Kong-born Canadians who moved back to Canada in the 2010s cited a variety of reasons for returning to Canada; including personal reasons, as well as political reasons relating to the Hong Kong-Mainland China conflict. The increase in the number of returning Hong Kong-Canadians has also been attributed to those who are returning to Canada to retire, after they moved back to Hong Kong for employment in the late 1990s. In addition to returning Hong Kong-born Canadians, the 2016 Canadian Census also reported an increase in the number of new migrants from Hong Kong that became permanent residents in Canada. According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, new visa applications from Hongkongers increased by 20 per cent to 10,819 in 2020. On November 12, 2020, Marco Mendicino, the Canadian Minister of Immigration, increased measures to expediate the process for Hong Kong residents to resettle in Canada as students, workers, and permanent residents. A new work-permit scheme was introduced in Canada in February 2021, that targeted young professionals who earned a postsecondary degree or diploma in the past five years from an institution recognized in Canada. For the 2021 Canadian census, a group of Hong Kong Canadians launched a campaign across Canada to encourage the Canadian government to recognize Hongkongers as an official identity, and for Hong Kong Canadians to write-in Hongkonger as their ethnic origin and Cantonese as one of their spoken language. Earlier censuses did not provide Hongkonger as an option, and anyone who noted it on the census form was grouped as Chinese. Hongkonger was later included in the 2021 Canadian census as an ethnicity. Demographics According to the Canadian Consulate General in Hong Kong, there are 500,000 people of Hong Kong descent in Canada. The 2016 Canadian census reported that only 215,775 Canadians residing in Canada were born in Hong Kong. The number of Hong Kong-born Canadians living in Canada peaked in 1996, with 241,095 Hong Kong-born Canadians reported in that