Mother Tongue, 2006

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Abstract

The 2006 Census data showed that Anglophones, that is the population whose mother tongue is English, made up the majority of the population in Canada, about 57.8%. This was the case for all provinces and territories except Quebec, where the majority of the population reported French as mother tongue. In total, 22.1% of the population in Canada were Francophones, which is the population with French as their mother tongue. Allophones, the population who reported a non-official language as mother tongue, made up 20%. Allophones tend to reside in the census metropolitan areas. In Toronto, 44% of its residents were Allophones. It was 41% in Vancouver and 22% in Montréal.

The 2006 Census data showed that Anglophones, whose mother tongue is English, still made up the majority of the population in Canada, about 57.8%. On the west coast, people in most of the areas in British Columbia reported having English as their mother tongue. There were a few exceptions in the lower mainland. For example, in the city of Vancouver, 50.1% of the people reported a non-official language (languages other than English or French) as their mother tongue. In Richmond, the percentage was higher, reaching 60.6%. In Burnaby, it was 56.5%.

Crossing the Rocky Mountains to the east, the census metropolitan areas of Edmonton (26.4%) and Calgary (25.1%) in Alberta showed a higher percentage of the population having non-official languages as their mother tongue compared to other areas in the province where most people said that English was their mother tongue. In southern Saskatchewan, about 80% of the population reported English as their mother tongue. Manitoba showed a similar picture, except some areas surrounding Winnipeg; these areas showed a higher percentage of people having a non-official language as their mother tongue.

Francophones made up 22.1% of the population in Canada in 2006. Outside Quebec, most of the Francophones lived in New Brunswick and some areas in Ontario, such as Greater Sudbury (27.5%) and North Bay (15.1%), and in Hawkesbury (65.0%) in Eastern Ontario where it borders the province of Quebec. In Ottawa, 14.9% of people had French as their mother tongue, while 62.6% reported English and 21.6% reported non-official languages. Southern Ontario showed a contrasting picture, especially in the greater Toronto area, where the majority of the people reported a non-official language as their mother tongue. In the city of Toronto, it was 49%. The proportion of people who reported a non-official language mother tongue reached 50.1% in Mississauga, 55.1% in Richmond Hill and 58.5% in Markham. In the rest of the province of Ontario, the majority of the population reported English as their mother tongue.

The majority of the population in the province of Quebec, with exceptions in a few areas, reported French as their mother tongue. A few census divisions such as Pointe-Claire (55%), Dorval (45.2%) and Dollard-des-Ormeaux (44.8%) had a relatively high proportion of people who reported English mother tongue. As well, in the census division of Montréal and Brossard, while individuals with French mother tongue made up the largest proportion, over one-third of the population in these two areas reported a non-official language as their mother tongue. In Montréal, 34.3% of the population were Allophones and in Brossard, Allophones made up 36.4%. The proportion of Anglophones in these two areas was both at 12.6%.

Among the Maritime Provinces, the north-eastern region of New Brunswick had a significant proportion of the population with French as their mother tongue. For example, 98.5% of the people living in Caraquet reported French as a mother tongue and 87.6% in Acadieville. Heading to the south, 33.0% of the people in Moncton had French mother tongue while 63.1% reported English. In the southern part of New Brunswick, the majority had English as a mother tongue. In Nova Scotia, the majority of the population also reported English as their mother tongue. In Halifax, 91.4% reported English as their mother tongue whereas 5.6% reported a non-official language as a mother tongue. Most of the people living in Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador also reported English as their mother tongue.

In the northern regions of the provinces and the territories, the percentage of the people having a non-official language as mother tongue was relatively high. For example, in the Baffin region, 77.1% of the population indicated a non-official language as a mother tongue, mainly Aboriginal languages. And it was 57.8% in the Nord-du-Québec region and 21.3% in the Fort Smith region.

The Daily is Statistics Canada's official release bulletin. The Daily for December 4, 2007, marked the public release of this census variable. Highlight tables allowing users to perform simple rank and sort functions with the data at various levels of geography are available for this variable here: Language Highlight Tables, 2006 Census. Technical notes for this variable can be found at Languages Reference Guide, 2006 Census.

Statistics Canada information is used with the permission of Statistics Canada. Information on the availability of the wide range of data from Statistics Canada can be obtained from the Statistics Canada's Regional Offices, its World Wide Web site at www.statcan.gc.ca, or its toll-free access number 1-800-263-1136.