2006 Census: The Evolving Linguistic Portrait, 2006 Census: Findings

By Jean-Pierre Corbeil and Christine Blaser, Demography Division, Statistics Canada

• Highlights
• Sharp increase in population with a mother tongue other than English or French
  • One out of five Canadians is an allophone in 2006 
  • Nearly half of allophones speak English or French most often at home
  • Allophones tend to live in census metropolitan areas
• The population with English mother tongue predominates in Canada, but its proportion is declining
• The proportion of Francophones and of French continue to decline
  • The number of Francophones in Canada increases but their proportion continues to decline
  • Interprovincial migration by Francophones
  • Language transfers of Francophones to English continues to increase outside Quebec
• Evolution of the language situation in Quebec
  • Increase in the Anglophone population
  • Allophones increase use of French at home
  • Increase in the number of the Anglophone and Francophone population but decline of their relative weight in Montréal
• Bilingualism
  • In Canada, knowledge of French continues increasing in the Anglophone population

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