'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
The proportion of Canadians who mainly speak French at home continues to decline in nearly all provinces and territories, including Quebec, the latest census release shows.
Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that the percentage of Canadians who speak predominantly French at home fell to 19.2 per cent in 2021 from 20 per cent in 2016. All provinces and territories saw a drop other than Yukon, where the figure was up from 2.4 to 2.6 per cent.
In Quebec, the percentage of people who speak French at home has been declining since 2001.
The federal agency also looks at the proportion of people whose first official language is English or French. It found more than three in four Canadians report English as their first official language, a figure that's increased over the five-year period.
That's while the proportion of people who report French as their first official language declined.
Eric Caron-Malenfant, deputy head of Statistics Canada's Centre for Demography, said at a news conference that the latest census report shows a continuation of language trends in the country.
Jean-Pierre Corbeil, an associate professor of sociology at Laval University, said immigration plays a key role in the trends we see with languages in Canada.
"We know that the composition of the population over time has an impact on ... the numbers of people speak French or English or, if you will, a non-official language," Corbeil said.
The sociologist said the rise in temporary immigration might be having an impact on French in Quebec, given that temporary immigrants are less likely to speak the language.
A recent study by the Institut du Quebec found that while non-permanent residents represented nine per cent of international immigration to the province from 2012 to 2016, that number had climbed to 64 per cent by 2019.
In Quebec, the number of Canadians who reported English as their first official language topped one million, while one in 10 Quebecers report speaking predominantly English at home.
As the country becomes more linguistically diverse, the percentage of Canadians who reported English or French as their mother tongue has also declined.
The agency defines mother tongue as a citizen's first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual.
Corbeil said that while some people put a lot of emphasis on French losing ground in Quebec, that phenomenon has already played for the English language in regions like Toronto, where nearly half of residents' mother tongues are not English.
Outside of Quebec, the number of people who speak predominantly French at home declined by 36,000.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced in 2019 its plan to boost francophone immigration to areas in Canada outside of Quebec. It's hoping to increase the share of francophone immigrants to 4.4 per cent by 2023.
In 2021, 3.6 per cent of arrivals outside of Quebec were French-speaking immigrants.
It would be more effective to direct French-speaking immigrants to Quebec, given the limited influence of the language outside of the province, said Charles Castonguay, a retired mathematics professor from the University of Ottawa who specializes in the language landscape of Canada.
"That will do much more to stabilize the weight of French in Canada than scattering these immigrants," he said.
English-French bilingualism remained unchanged over the five-year period, with 18 per cent of Canadians reporting they can conduct a conversation in both languages.
However, a closer look at the numbers shows the rate of bilingualism is up in Quebec but down in the rest of Canada.
The census release comes after Quebec introduced a new language law this year that restricts access to government services in English. In June, Quebec Premier Francois Legault drew criticism for sounding the alarm over a decline in the number of people who speak French at home.
Legault declared that "nobody could deny" French is in decline, saying fewer Quebecers were speaking the language at home as well as at work.
Corbeil said the impact of Bill 96 would not be reflected in the data given it was passed this year.
"It's really the immigration policy and immigration measures (where) I think the focus should be put, because it's difficult actually to see … what are the measures that will have an impact on the language dynamics," Corbeil said.
Statistics Canada will publish a census report on workplaces later this year that will shed light on languages spoken in work environments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 17, 2022.
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Dakota Joshua had a goal and two assists and the Vancouver Canucks scored three third-period goals to claw out a 5-4 comeback victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Wednesday.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.