The lights are red after the release of Canada’s 2021 census data, which records an acceleration in the decline of French in favor of English and other languages not only in Canada, but also in Quebec.
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The situation is more critical in other parts of Canada, including Ontario and New Brunswick (See other text)
“It’s very devastating” for both provinces, comments Stéphanie Chouinard, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada.
Decline in Quebec
In the province of La Belle, French has also declined on several fronts since the last 2016 census. There has been a decline in the number of first language official language French (from 77.1% to 74.8%) as mother tongue (from 83.7% to 82.2%) and main language at home (from 79.0% to 77.5%).
Unsurprisingly, Montreal (-2.4%), Laval (-3%) and Outvois (-2.4%) recorded the largest declines in terms of the first official language spoken on the island.
Although this is relatively high, the percentage of Quebecers who say they can carry on a conversation in French has dropped from 94.5% to 93.7% over the past five years.
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English is progressing
Conversely, the proportion of people in Quebec whose first official language is English has risen by one point, now reaching 13.0%, indicating a “close return to the range seen in 1981”.
For the first time since comparable data were compiled, the number of people with English as their first official language will pass the milestone of one million speakers in Quebec in 2021.
Statistics Canada attributes the increase to a younger English-speaking population, an increase in the number of non-permanent residents and a slowdown in the exodus of Anglophones to other provinces.
Across the country, Statistics Canada explains that “immigration has contributed” to the advancement of English because it is to this language that “the majority of immigrants return after arriving in the country.”
Richard Marcoux, director of the Demography and Statistics Laboratory of the Francophone Space at Laval University, admits that the situation of the French language in Quebec is “fragile,” but he’s not worried. According to him, the language used at work and the ability to carry on a conversation in French are the best indicators of one’s vitality.
He believes the Legault government’s reform of the French language charter is a step in the right direction. Minister Simon Jolin-Barrett is reluctant to force a reform for now.
“Census data on official languages is worrying,” says federal languages minister Jeanette Petitpass Taylor. Remember that the Trudeau government’s reform of the Official Languages Act is still pending.
Portrait of a Confused Frenchman in Rock
While the French state is not encouraging in Quebec, data from the 2021 census is even more devastating for the rest of Canada, particularly Ontario and New Brunswick.
Nationwide, between 2016 and 2021 the proportion of people speaking French as their first official language fell from 22.2% to 21.4%, down from 27.2% in 1971.
Conversely, for the first time since 1971, English has gained almost a point as the first official language spoken, now reaching 75.5%.
According to Statistics Canada senior analyst Bertrand Ouellet-Leville, less than half (49%) of Franco-Ontarians use French mainly at home, while 44% of them speak English mainly there. The remaining 6% use both languages equally.
It was New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province, that showed the largest drop in the population using mainly French (-1.9%).
“This is worrying for many reasons,” said Stéphanie Chouinard, a professor at Canada’s Royal Military College, because New Brunswick, the land of the Acadians, is below the “psychological bar” of 30% of its population, whose first official language is French.
To reverse this trend, “Canada must completely rethink its immigration system” to accept “more immigrants from French-speaking Africa,” judge Professor Richard Marcoux of Laval University.
French is the first official language spoken in Canada outside of Quebec
- 1971 6.0%
- 1981 4.9%
- 1991 4.6%
- 2001 4.2%
- 2011 3.7%
- 2021 3.3%
Bilingualism is increasing in Quebec, while it has decreased in the rest of the country
Bilingualism is more of a thing than ever for French-speaking Quebecers.
In Quebec, the proportion of French-English bilinguals increased from 44.5% in 2016 to 46.4% in 2021.
During the same period, bilingualism among English-native-speaking Quebecers fell from 68.8% to 67.1%.
The rate of bilingualism in Canada remained fairly stable between 2016 and 2021, increasing by only 0.1% to reach 18%, with an overall increase of 1.9% in Quebec.
“This relative stability is actually the result of two trends moving in opposite directions, with the proportion of French-English bilinguals increasing in Quebec but decreasing outside Quebec,” the federal agency explains.
In fact, the proportion of French-English bilinguals in other provinces fell from 9.8% to 9.5%.
“There are important questions that need to be asked about the perception and valuation of bilingualism in the country,” believes political science professor Stephanie Soinard.
For the first time in history, more than half of Quebecers report being able to carry on a conversation in English.
“This is the first time this threshold has been exceeded since the 1901 census, when information on knowledge of official languages was first collected,” Statistics Canada said.
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