Using Languages at Work in Canada, 2006 Census: Provinces and territories

Use of French up among allophone immigrant workers in Quebec

In 2006, the use of French was also up among allophone immigrant workers in Quebec, compared to the situation observed in 2001. The proportion of allophones, representing approximately 70% of all immigrant workers in Quebec, who reported using French (alone or with another language) most often at work was 63% in 2006. In 2001, this proportion was closer to 60%. The proportion of those who did not use French most often at work, but who used it regularly, remained the same at 15%.

In terms of the use of English by allophone immigrant workers, the proportion of those who reported using it most often (alone or with another language) fell from 48% in 2001 to 45% in 2006. Moreover, 12% of all allophone immigrant workers indicated that they used English and French equally as their main languages of work (14% in 2001).

As with immigrant workers overall, the languages used at work varied depending on when they came to Canada.

In the 2006 Census, Quebec's approximately 77,000 allophone workers who had arrived recently, that is since January 1, 2001, used French at work more than recent allophone immigrants at the time of the 2001 Census. This indicates a reversal of the trend, because the 2001 Census statistics showed a decrease in the use of French and its replacement by English among allophone immigrant workers who had arrived since the early 1980s had risen, bringing them almost even with recent immigrants.

By contrast, the use of English at work dropped among recent immigrants, compared to the observations in 2001. In 2006, 32% of recent allophone immigrant workers used English most often at work, compared to 40% in 2001 among recent immigrants at the time. However, while 50% of recent allophone immigrants reported using French most often at work in 2006, this proportion was 43% for recent immigrant workers at the time of the 2001 Census.

The use of languages at work by allophone immigrants is closely linked to their knowledge of the languages. During the 2001 Census, the extensive use of English by allophone immigrant workers who had arrived in Canada during the 15 years preceding that census largely accounts for the fact that the relative share of those workers who spoke only English had risen.

In 2006, the sharp rise in recent immigration of Arabic, Spanish and Romanian mother tongue groups partly accounted for the rise in the use of French at work because of the greater propensity of these groups to know and use French. For example, in 2006, Quebec had 15,500 recent immigrants whose mother tongue was Arabic, 84% of whom reported using French most often (alone or with another language) at work.

The 2006 Census statistics also reveal a rise in the use of French among immigrants who had arrived in Canada since the early 1970s. Thus, among allophone immigrants in a given cohort, the use of French at work rose after 2001. This increase was particularly marked among immigrants who had arrived between 1996 and 2000. Whereas 42% of immigrants who had arrived in Canada during this period reported using French most often at work in 2001, this proportion rose to 50% for the same cohort five years later. In contrast, whereas in the 2001 Census, the proportion of English use had reached 40% among immigrants who had arrived between 1996 and 2000, it was 32% for the same cohort five years later.

Interprovincial migration only accounts for part of the phenomenon. In 2006, of the 51,000 immigrants who had arrived in Canada between 1996 and 2000 and who were living in Quebec in 2001, 3,300 were no longer living in this province in 2006. In contrast, 1,745 allophone immigrants who lived in another province in 2001 had since moved to Quebec. Even if this net loss of approximately 1,500 people (60% of whom reported that they knew only English) is factored in, the trend shown in Figure 2 remains the same.

Knowledge of the official languages among allophone immigrant workers who had arrived in Canada between 1996 and 2000 has risen. Whereas 29% of them had reported knowing only English at the time of the 2001 Census, this proportion had fallen to 22% five years later. The proportion of those who knew only French remained the same, at 23%, whereas the proportion of workers who could carry on a conversation in both official languages rose from 43% to 53%. In addition, in 2006, 52% of French–English bilingual allophone immigrants who had arrived during this period, reported using French most often at work, and 18% used French and English equally. The proportion of those who used English most often was 27%.

Finally, the predominant use of French at work in the census division of Montréal (or the Island of Montréal) by recent allophone immigrants also rose between 2001 and 2006 (from 40% to 46%), although to a lesser extent than in Quebec as a whole, in view of the larger presence of English. In addition, in 2006, the proportion of recent immigrant workers who reported using English and French equally most often at work remained the same among recent immigrant workers in 2001, which is to say 11%.

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