A few statistics
A few statistics
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17.5 million Canadians (59% of the population) are native speakers of English and 6.7 million Canadians (23%) are native speakers of French.
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25 million Canadians (85% of the population) can speak English and 9.1 million Canadians (31%) can speak French. No other language in Canada is spoken by more than 2.9% of the population.
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About 1.9 million Canadians live in official language minority communities. The 2001 census showed that there were 918,955 people in Quebec whose first official language was English, while 987,640 people outside Quebec stated that French was their first official language spoken.
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By using English and French as official languages, the Government of Canada can communicate with more than 98% of the Canadian population.
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The number of bilingual Canadians increased significantly from 1971 to 2001, rising from 2.9 million (13% of the population) to 5.2 million. (17.7%).
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Nationally, 43% of Francophones report that they are bilingual, compared with 9% of Anglophones.
* Montréal has more bilingual workers and people who speak at least three languages than any other city in North America.
Bilingualism among young people
- About 2.5 million students are learning English or French as a second language.
- During the 2004-2005 school year, about 300,628 Anglophone students were registered in French immersion programs right across the country.
- One quarter of young people aged 15 to 29 say that they are bilingual.
In the provinces
- New Brunswick is the only province that is officially bilingual. Several provinces offer certain provincial and municipal services in the language of the minority population.
- Outside Quebec, a national network of French-language schools offers instruction to nearly 150,000 French-speaking students.
- In Quebec, a network of nine school boards offers primary and secondary education to nearly 115,000 young Anglophones.
