Canada 2021 Census: Languages

 

Last week, Statistics Canada released the results of the last census on languages. The data obtained reveals many interesting things about the Multilingual picture of our Country. 

The results released show that we have a more diverse country in terms of languages. Almost a fourth of the total population report having a first language other than English and French and almost half of them live in Ontario.

We have now more than 1 million more native speakers of English than during last census. But in terms of percentage, the increase was very slight, from 58.1% to 58.4%. The number of People who use English as first official language spoken increased to 75.5 %. However, there were bad news for French language as numbers showed a decline in its use. The percentage of Native speakers decreased from 21.4% to 20.9%. 21.4% of Canadian residents use French as first official language spoken. Even though there are more speakers of French in Canada, their numbers did not grow as fast as other groups. Proportionally, even in Quebec the French language is experiencing a decline in use.

You can compare both Census, 2021 here and 2016 here. As per numbers of bilingual people who speak both official languages, they keep steady. But the truth is that there was an increase in number of Bilinguals in Quebec, and at the same time, there was a decline in the rest of the country. 

Indigenous languages were not favoured this time. Numbers report 188,900 native speakers of indigenous languages, vs 213,230 from 2016 census. Provinces like British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan experienced a decrease in more than 10% in their respective populations.

Punjabi is now Canada’s third language in terms of number of native speakers, followed by Mandarin and then Arabic. These are the 3 most spoken immigrant languages in Canada. They are followed by Cantonese, Spanish and Tagalog. We are now more than 100 thousand more native speakers of Spanish than in 2016 living in Canada. The percentage of Spanish speakers in Canada increased from 1.4% to 1.6%.

Newfoundland and Labrador was the only province where there was an indigenous language as the 3^rd most spoken language, as per 2016 Census: Innu (Montagnais). It is no longer the 3^rd language but Arabic is. There was an increase in the number of native speakers of both languages, even though the population in this province decreased.

More than 41% of the residents are bilingual, meaning, they can speak fluently in 2 languages, and 7% can do so in 3 languages or more. In Montreal, almost 20% of its population declares themselves to be trilingual 

In my opinion, It is good news to see a more diverse society in Canada. New Business opportunities can be opened in this country in areas in which investors are interested in recruiting bilingual talent. Cities like Toronto and Montreal are interesting places from where you can offer multilingual professional services. For language industry, these are good news too.

There was an increase in the number of speakers of Asian languages. This is a good thing as overall trade across the Pacific Ocean is expected to grow and may lead to new opportunities for Canada to increase its share in this market. But considering that still 75% of our external commerce is with the USA, is difficult to say if this fact will have a relevant impact in our International trade. I would propose to seek how to attract more talent who speak Spanish. Trade with Mexico is growing (It is already our 5^th more important business partner) and in the USA, the use of Spanish is growing as well. It would not be surprising that as a condition to continue our bilateral trade at the same level, or to increase it, a greater use of Spanish may be required. 

In regards to Indigenous languages, the results of this census will attract more attention. Numbers show a decline in native speakers. But there is a note explaining that collecting data from indigenous communities in times of COVID has been challenging and some numbers might be incomplete.  Are we doing enough to preserve those languages? This debate will continue.