Afghan Canadians are Canadians with ancestry from Afghanistan. Their ethnic origin may come from any of the ethnic groups of Afghanistan. In the Canada 2001 Census about 25,230 Canadians were from Afghanistan.[2] The former Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham has recently said there are about 80,000 people from Afghanistan in Canada.[3] Due to the political borders at earlier times, some of these Afghan immigrants may have been ethnic Pashtuns from British India (present-day Pakistan) or Afghanistan.
In the Canadian Census, Canadians with descent from Afghanistan are classified as West Asian.[4]
Apart from the modern nationality definition, there's a significant portion of Pakistani Canadians whom are Pashtuns or ethnic Afghans, as well numerous South Asian Muslim communities claim putative Ethnic Afghan and/or Pashtun ancestry. However Pakistani Pashtuns have been classified as South Asian and not West Asian, as the phenomena can be explained by the Durand line thus the category of Pakistani Canadian has become ambiguous. Afghans as a status as a visible minority is ambiguous as with other West Asians and Arabs, with more complexity when taking Ethnic Pashtuns of Pakistani origin into account whom are of the same racial stock to Caucasoid Afghans.
