A. Size of the Quebec English-Speaking Population

The number of Anglophones in Quebec has been the object of much discussion and debate among policy makers and community groups. Stevenson (1999) contends that there is no consensus on how the Anglophone community in Quebec should be defined, but the definition used has a profound impact on the assessment of population needs and the distribution of services.

The group’s estimated size depends upon the system of classification used by governments or non-governmental organizations. The difference lies in census categories that focus on the language first learned and/or the language first spoken and spoken in the home. As each category causes some variation in numbers, the choice has a potentially significant bearing on the degree of service extended to the group:

• Mother tongue (MT) is the language first learned and still understood.
• The first official language spoken (FOLS) and the language spoken at home (LSH) are the most commonly used criteria for establishing the size of the linguistic group.

When referring to public sector employees, the Treasury Board Secretariat of the Government of Canada defines Anglophones and Francophones by their official language declared, reflecting primary personal identification. This definition contrasts with that used by the Quebec Treasury Board, which refers to mother tongue when estimating the numbers of the province’s Anglophones. Table 1 shows that the size of the population can vary as much as 300,000 people, depending on the definition. Ultimately, the debate over the size of the English-speaking community will centre on defining those 300,000 individuals whose primary, but not necessarily first-learned language, is English. This group for the most part resides in the Montréal area.

Underlying such estimates is a debate about who is Anglophone, who is Allophone and, to a lesser degree, who is Francophone. Although it is used to a lesser extent by governments and communities, the variable seems to be the language spoken most often at home, a number that includes many who did not first learn English but who use it primarily in their homes. In the Quebec Anglophone population, the number generated by using this criterion tends to fall somewhere between the mother tongue and first official language figures. The difference can be attributed to the first-learned language by immigrants and their descendants, which was neither English nor French, who adopted the use of English in their homes. The figure also includes mother-tongue Anglophones and Francophones who switched to another language in their homes.

The definition of Anglophone (mother tongue or home language) also affects estimating the loss in numbers to the Quebec Anglophone community over the 1971-2001 period. When mother tongue is used as a criterion, the loss is around 25 percent, whereas the loss is 15 percent when defined by home language. In fact, using the FOLS criterion, the numbers show a slight growth between 1991 and 2001.

Yet another critical consideration in determining the size of the Anglophone population is the distribution of those individuals who make dual or multiple declarations of English, French and non-official languages as either first learned or used in the home. The totals in Table 1 were based on the method of distribution used by part of Statistics Canada, which allocates half of dual declarations to the relevant language communities. Traditionally, such dual declarations are more common for first-official-language-spoken respondents than they are on the basis of language spoken most often at home or mother tongue.

Modifications to the question on language spoken at home in the 2001 census shed important light on the linguistic diversity of the Quebec Anglophone population because there is a greater multiplicity of responses. Revisions to the census question were made because the previous measure on the language spoken most frequently at home did not permit analysts to know the actual number of Francophones outside Quebec who spoke French at home but less often. The revised question includes persons that “only, mostly, equally or regularly” spoke an official language at home.

As applied to Quebec’s English-speakers, the revised census question language spoken at home substantially modifies the linguistic profile of the population. According to the revised 2001 home language question, nearly 1.2 million Quebecers speak some English in their homes. Province-wide, nearly 60 percent of mother-tongue Anglophones speak English only, or mostly, with some 63 percent of Montréalers doing so. Outside the Montréal region, there are 49 percent of mother-tongue Anglophones who speak English only, or mostly, in the home.

Viewed on the basis of what they speak at home, nearly as many Quebecers reported speaking English as they did English and French. Those speaking the English language in Montréal homes very often do so in conjunction with a non-official language. Outside the region, as seen in Table 4, more spoke some combination of English and French in their homes, rather than English alone.

The revised home language question provides further evidence of the impact of mixing between Anglophones and Francophones. This integration has marked the Anglophone community and is rapidly redefining the English-speaking community outside the Montréal region. On the other hand, in Montréal, the interaction between Anglophone and Allophone is as much a defining element in the community’s evolution as the mix of English and French.

Outside the Montréal region, there are nearly the same number of persons of English mother tongue (148,000) as there are individuals who most often speak English at home. In fact, in the rest of the province, approximately one-quarter of those whose mother tongue is English speak French most often in their homes. The English-language population outside Montréal did not decline because of the 2 percent of the mother-tongue-French population who, in 2001, spoke English most often at home.

There is considerable variation in the extent to which such language shifts occur. In the Québec City area, mother-tongue Anglophones are just slightly more inclined to speak English (3,590) than French at home (3,360). It is important to note that the near 50 percent shift in the degree of those first learning English to speak French in their home is somewhat offset by the 950 mother-tongue Francophones in the region who speak English in their homes. In Sherbrooke, of the 6,720 mother-tongue Anglophones, some 1,345 used French most often in their homes, while 670 mother-tongue Francophones in that region switched to English.

B. Share of Quebec English-Speaking Population

In addition to the relative size of the language groups, the weight (or share) of the population is also affected by the designation used to determine community numbers. Again, depending on the criteria, the weight of regional Anglophone groups can shift within the province-wide Anglophone community, as well in a particular region or municipality. The use of mother tongue generally results in the greatest share loss. Quebec Anglophones represented 8.3 percent of the provincial population in 2001, compared with 8.8 percent in 1996. With the use of home language as definition, Anglophones represent 11.6 percent of the population, and 12.9 percent when defined by first official language spoken.

As of 1996, employing the mother tongue criterion yielded a greater number of Allophones than Anglophones in the province, which news that generated a great deal of media attention at the time. The 1996 figures show that Anglophones represented 45.6 percent of all non-Francophones and, some five years later, their share dropped to 42.3 percent on the basis of mother tongue.

In the Montréal region, the gap between mother-tongue Anglophones and Allophones widens further. Anglophones represent over 400,000 individuals, approximately 40 percent of the non-Francophone population. On the basis of home language, the proportion of Anglophones within the non-Francophone population rises to over 550,000 (or 60 percent) of the Montréal region’s non-Francophone population, with the difference largely attributable to the use of English in the homes of persons whose mother tongue was neither English nor French. In 2001, there were approximately 625,000 mother-tongue Allophones, and their numbers declined to 368,000 on the basis of home language. However, when home language is the criterion, the share of Anglophones rises to 60 percent of the region’s non-Francophone segment.

If mother tongue is the criterion used, then the Anglophone population in the Montréal region accounts for nearly three-quarters of the province’s English-language community. If either home language or FOLS definitions are employed, then the region’s share of the provincial Anglophone population rises slightly above 80 percent.

C. Anglophone Distribution

The distribution of a community in a particular territory can have a profound impact. Several experts concur that residential concentration of communities tends to afford better opportunities for the preservation of group identity. Such concentration facilitates stronger institutional support, community vitality and greater social interaction among members of the same community. The same is true for preserving official language minorities over extended periods of time. Generally, however, analysts have expressed concern over ethnic and racial concentration. It is seen as an impediment to integration into the larger society, and one that very often carries economic penalties (Balakrishnan and Gyimah, 2003).

Generalizations about the Quebec Anglophone population tend to arise from perceptions of the economic and social condition of the Montréal English-speaking community. In the Montréal region, mother-tongue Anglophones represent some 13 percent of the population. Between 1996 and 2001, the real numbers declined by over 4 percent from 426,605 to 408,185. Approximately 300,000 of the region’s mother-tongue Anglophones reside on the Island of Montréal (rather than the entire region), and represent over 17 percent of the Island population (on the basis of mother tongue).

Largely because of this Montréal contingent, Quebec’s Anglophone population has traditionally been viewed as having high residential concentration. The movement of Quebec Anglophones within and outside the province has had a significant impact on the areas in which they are concentrated. Of the net loss of more than 29,000 Anglophones from interprovincial migration between 1996 and 2001, some 18,000 were in the Montréal region and over 11,000 were in the rest of the province. In percentage terms, clearly the greatest loss was to the Anglophone population residing outside the Montréal region, which was trimmed by approximately 7 percent (from 160,000 in 1996). However, when accounting for declarations of both English and French mother tongue, the decline is reduced to proportions similar to those in the other two areas.

There were important variations in the population losses outside Montréal over the years from 1996 to 2001. During that period, there was a 20-percent loss in the combined Anglophone populations of Québec City (9,745 persons), the Gaspé (1,800 persons) and Trois-Rivières (1,430 persons). Declines to these communities were largely attributable to movement from that region to other parts of the province as well as to other parts of the country. The Anglophone population of Sherbrooke (8,015) also fell by 10 percent. In the Outaouais, there was a slight increase in the number of Anglophones (32,950) but this was offset by growth in the size of the other language groups, so that the Anglophone share dropped from 13.3 percent to 12.8 percent between 1996 and 2001.

D. Aging Anglophones

The overall aging of the Anglophone population has been a major problem arising from the net loss of younger Anglophones through intra-provincial and interprovincial migration. Whereas in 2001 some 12.3 percent of all Quebecers were over the age of 65, among mother-tongue Anglophones, some 13.6 percent were in that age group, compared with 12 percent of the province’s Francophones.

At 37.1 years of age, the median age of Quebec’s mother-tongue Anglophone community is less than that of the mother-tongue Francophone population (38.7 years). Younger Anglophone communities are in Montréal, Laval, Montérégie and the Outaouais regions. Outside the major urban centres, the regional Francophone population is generally younger on average than the Anglophone groups. Anglophone communities in such regions of Gaspé (46.9 years), Bonaventure (46.1 years), Argenteuil (45.4 years) and Québec City (44.0 years) possess median ages well above the average in their respective regions.