South Asian Canadians in Metro Vancouver are the third-largest pan-ethnic group in the region, comprising 369,295 persons or 14.2 percent of the total population as of 2021.

These individuals first arrived in 1897 when a contingent of Sikh soldiers participated in the parade to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee by traveling across the British Empire.

[21] By 1900, the South Asian population in the Lower Mainland (contemporary regional districts of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley), was estimated to be at least 100, of which almost all were of Punjabi Sikh origin.

[26] In 1908 the Canadian Dominion government had a plan to obtain labour for sugar plantations in British Honduras, now Belize, by recruiting Punjabis in Vancouver.

[28] However, in 1914 Canadian authorities turned away the Komagata Maru and most of its passengers; this vessel carried Punjabi Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus who were intending to move to Canada.

This incident later provoked persons of Indian origin residing on the North American West Coast to oppose discrimination against their ethnic groups.

[30] By 1923 Vancouver became the primary cultural, social, and religious centre of British Columbia Indo-Canadians and it had the largest East Indian-origin population of any city in North America.

[35] While still representing less than 10% of the South Asian population in the region, additional immigration to Vancouver of those of non Punjabi backgrounds residing in India, Fiji, and England occurred in the late 1960s.

Other groups immigrating to Vancouver in the same decade included Sri Lankans, Ismaili Muslims, Gujarati Hindus from East Africa and non-Punjabi Pakistanis.

[8][9][16] In 1996 a controversy occurred when Dr. Stephens, a doctor in San Jose, California, put advertisements for sex-selection services which would allow parents to reject female children.

In response, the president of Sikh Alliance Against Violence, Kandola, stated that the warning was too vague and could cause unnecessary panic and confusion.

[44] In August 2008, during a community meeting,[45] the Prime Minister of Canada gave an apology for the Komagata Maru incident in a park,[46] in Surrey.

[1] Of them, based on 2016 Census responses, 243,135 were East Indian, 30,670 were Punjabi, 10,820 were Pakistani, 7,200 were South Asian, n.i.e., 5,070 were Sri Lankan, 1,510 were Bangladeshi, 1,155 were Nepali, 1,055 were Tamil, 525 were Sinhalese, 755 were Bengali, 315 were Goan, 615 were Gujarati and 150 were Kashmiri.

[98] Part of a larger trend in large metropolitan areas across North America, new immigrants began to bypass traditional migration patterns to an inner-city enclave − at the time for South Asians in Metro Vancouver, the inner-city enclave was located in the Sunset neighbourhood − instead opting to migrate to suburban locales, leading to the creation of the Ethnoburb.

[100] As many South Asians have moved to suburban areas such as Surrey, Delta and Coquitlam, the number of businesses in the Vancouver's Punjabi Market began to decline in the 2000s.

[171] Ames and Inglis stated that they got the supporting data from August 1951-December 1966 marriage records,[172] as well as donor lists,[91] at the Vancouver Khalsa Diwan Society temple.

In 2013 Alexandra Gill of The Globe and Mail wrote that in regards to area food critics the Indian restaurant scene was "a largely unknown dining landscape.

[33] In 1988 Hugh Johnston wrote that "Vancouver's South Asian community was an unweildy entity without a great sense of common purpose" even before the 1984 assault at Amritsar, and that because of the Khalistan-related tensions there was no "effective umbrella organization" in existence.

[177] The promotion of the multicultural policies in Canada in the mid-20th century also caused additional organizations, including those funded by governments and private entities, to be founded.

[163] Issues related to employment and labour are handled by the Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society (PICS), which serves Vancouver and Surrey.

[183] Irene Bloemraad, author of "Diversity and Elected Officials in the City of Vancouver," stated that the at-large voting system used by Vancouver makes it difficult to elect women and minorities,[182] and that the council's majority White demographics were "probably" influenced by the original rationale of the at-large system, to "keep those with social democratic ideologies out of politics".

[186] That year, the President of the Ross Street Sikh Temple, Jarnail Singh Bhandal, advocated for a ward voting system in the City of Vancouver so that Indo-Canadians and other ethnic minorities have more of a chance to be elected.

[186] During a 2004 failed election proposal to reinstitute the ward system in the City of Vancouver, the area with the highest concentration of Indo-Canadians mostly voted in favor of reestablishing it.

[182] In 2008 Kashmir Dhaliwal, a candidate for the Vision Vancouver council, stated that he had plans to legally challenge the at-will voting system.

Dr. Lakhbir Singh, a candidate for the Vancouver School Board, criticized the at-large voting system, saying that it discriminates against Indo-Canadians and that he would join the legal challenge.

[189] Kamala Elizabeth Nayar, the author of The Punjabis in British Columbia: Location, Labour, First Nations, and Multiculturalism, wrote that compared to Indo-Canadian people who were born and raised in the Lower Mainland, Indo-Canadians born in Canada whose ancestors settled in rural areas of British Columbia, and who themselves live in Vancouver, "tended to assess Canada's policy of multiculturalism more critically".

[200] An anonymous interviewee of Nayar, a woman in the third generation,[201] stated "In Vancouver, there is pressure to live strictly according to the precepts in comparison to other places like in California.

[199] As of 1988 many residents of rural Punjab, including children, women, and dependent older persons, were arriving in Vancouver due to the sponsorship of relatives.

[200] Margaret Walton-Roberts, the author of "Embodied Global Flows: Immigration and Transnational Networks between British Columbia, Canada, and Punjab, India," wrote that there is a specific "spatial relationship" between the Greater Vancouver region and Doaba, a region of Punjab, to the point where Punjabi villagers recite the specific locations of their Canadian relatives.

[230] Radio India initially stated that it had political connections; Managing director Maninder Gill had mailed photographs of himself socializing with Canadian politicians.