The Commissioner of Official Languages calls for increased support for research

“Research on linguistic duality is a valuable tool for governments, which develop policies and programs, and for the communities themselves, so they can evaluate their vitality, progress and needs,”stated the Commissioner of Official Languages in January during the launch of the study titled The Role of Canadian Federal Research Funding Agencies in the Promotion of Official Languages.

This study examines the situation of researchers working in official language minority communities and looks at how official languages are being supported as a research subject. The Commissioner issued nine recommendations in order to ensure that researchers from official language minority communities are better equipped and supported in their research efforts, as well as to encourage research on issues related to linguistic duality.

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Symposium: Official Languages Research Issues

The Symposium on Official Language Research Issues was held on January 10 and 11, 2008. This event, organized by Heritage Canada in cooperation with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages as well as several other departments, brought together more than 160 people. Key Francophone and Anglophone stakeholders (researchers, governments, and community representatives) discussed the current status of official languages research in Canada and identified avenues to improve its relevance. The objective is to expand the use of research in public policy development in order to contribute to community vitality and linguistic duality.

This event’s presentations and a report are available on the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities (CIRLM) Web site.

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Change in Canada’s linguistic profile

On December 4, 2007, Statistics Canada released the May 2006 census data on languages in Canada. While some statistics reveal positive trends, others are cause for concern.

At the national level, the French mother tongue population has increased slightly in real numbers since 2001. We can celebrate the vitality of the French language in Canada—there are 110,000 more people with French as their mother tongue than there were in 2001. The presence of 7 million Francophones across the country firmly anchors linguistic duality in the Canadian identity.

There has also been a marked increase in the allophone population: today, one fifth of Canadians have neither French nor English as their mother tongue. French and English mother tongue populations constitute 22% and 58% of the Canadian population, respectively.

The French mother tongue population outside of Quebec has decreased slightly, from 980,000 to 975,000 people. Its weight relative to the rest of the population is 4.1%, whereas it was 4.4% in 2001. While the actual number of Francophones has remained stable overall outside of Quebec, the decline in their proportion is worrisome.

The anglophone population in Quebec increased marginally, from 919,000^* in 2001 to 995,000^* people in 2006. Among Quebec allophones, there has been an increase in the use of French at home.

Knowledge of French has increased among the country’s Anglophones and allophones, 9.4% and 12.1% of whom are bilingual, respectively. It is most encouraging to note that an increasing number of Canadians are eager to speak the country’s two official languages. There is, however, a cloud on the horizon: the bilingualism rate of young Anglophones aged 15 to 19 and living outside Quebec dropped from  14.7% to 13% in 2006. These statistics show that the federal and provincial governments must set up accessible, effective programs to maintain public interest in learning the second official language.

Data on the language of work will be released in April 2008.

^* In contrast to mother tongue, this number denotes the first official language spoken, which is available in the tables on Statistics Canada's Web site, and allows for a more accurate representation of diverse communities.

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Survey on the vitality of official language minorities

Statistics Canada, in cooperation with several federal partners, has released some data from the post-censal Survey on the Vitality of the Official Language Minorities.

This survey contains a wealth of data on behaviour and social conditions within official language communities. With more than 35,000 respondents, this is the most comprehensive survey ever conducted on official languages.

"This portrait is an in-depth examination of the various factors that contribute to the vitality of the Francophonie outside Quebec and the Anglophone communities of Quebec. The survey results do not surprise me. The data presented by Statistics Canada confirms what I have seen on my visits to official-language communities across the country. Even though the challenges are great and vary in different parts of the country, Canadians are committed to living in the official language of their choice as much as possible. The communities have seen their situation improve over the last ten years and they are relatively optimistic about their future,” said Mr. Fraser, the Commissioner of Official Languages.

The abundance of data on official language communities stemming from this survey will stimulate research work in this field for many years to come.