The number of Canadians who primarily speak a language other than English or French hit an all-time high in 2021, according to new census data released Wednesday.
English and French remain the dominant languages in Canada according to Statistics Canada, but the number of people who speak a non-dominant language at home has risen to 4.6 million, or about 13% of the population.
Meanwhile, at least one in four Canadians reported having at least one mother tongue other than English or French.
“The results we released today largely show that the trends are continuing in Canada,” said Éric Caron-Malenfant, assistant director of Statistics Canada’s Center for Demography, at a press conference on Wednesday. .
The increase is largely attributable to an increase in the number of Canadians who report speaking primarily South Asian languages, including Hindi and Punjabi.
In addition, seven out of 10 Canadians whose mother tongue is other than English or French reported also speaking an official language at home.
According to census data, more Canadians are also able to speak more than one language. The number of people who said they could hold a conversation in more than one language fell from 39% in 2016 to just over 41% in 2021.
Just under a third of Canadians said they were perfectly bilingual and about 7% said they could speak three languages fluently. And, of those who were fully bilingual, more reported being able to speak languages other than English and French.
“It’s not just French-English bilingualism, it’s all bilingualism,” Caron-Malenfant said.
The proportion of Francophones continues to decline
Despite an increase in the number of Canadians reporting French as their first official language, the number of French speakers as a percentage of the overall population continued to decline in 2021.
According to Statistics Canada, the proportion of Francophones in Canada has steadily declined since 1971, when 27% of Canadians declared French as their first official language. That number fell to just over 21% in 2021, while 75% of Canadians reported English as their first official language, an increase of about 1% from the last census.
“Both numbers are on the rise, with people having French and English as their first official language spoken,” Caron-Malenfant said. “But not at the same pace.”
The proportion of French speakers in Quebec also fell to 77% in 2021, from 79% in 2016.
Outside Quebec, the number of Canadians reporting French as their first official language has decreased in all provinces except British Columbia.
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