In Canada, a visible minority (French: minorité visible) is a demographic category of people, defined by the Government of Canada as "persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour". The term is used primarily as a demographic category by Statistics Canada, in connection with Canada's employment equity, human rights, and other laws and policies. The term as defined, and the qualifier "visible", were chosen by the Canadian authorities as a way to classify and separate out newer immigrant minorities from both aboriginal Canadian minorities, and from other "older" minorities—which were distinguishable by language spoken (French vs. English) and religious identification (Catholics vs. Protestants): so-called "invisible" traits.
The term "visible minority" is sometimes used as a euphemism for "non-white". This is incorrect, in that the government definition creates a difference: Aboriginal people are excluded from the category "visible minorities", but may not be white either. In some cases, members of "visible minorities" may be visually indistinguishable from the majority population and/or may form a majority-minority population locally (as is the case in Vancouver and Toronto).