New historical data tables on immigration and official languages

Released: 2024-01-23

In 2021, immigrants represented almost one in four Canadians (23.0%), the highest proportion in over a century. Further, as in previous decades, the vast majority of immigrants could conduct a conversation in one or both of the country's official languages (English and French). For example, this was observed both in 1951 (96.1%) and in 2021 (93.6%).

Today, Statistics Canada is releasing two new tables of historical data on immigrant status and official languages, one on knowledge of official languages by immigrant status for the period from 1951 to 2021, and the other on first official language spoken by immigrant status for the period from 1971 to 2021.

The proportion of immigrants who can have a conversation in French is rising in Quebec and falling in Canada outside Quebec

Chart 1 
Knowledge of official languages by immigrants in Quebec, 1951 to 2021

Chart 2 
Knowledge of official languages by immigrants in Canada outside Quebec, 1951 to 2021

In Quebec, the proportion of immigrants who can conduct a conversation in French only or along with English more than doubled, from 38.4% in 1951 to 80.5% in 2021. In contrast, the proportion of immigrants who could converse in English only or along with French was lower in 2021 (66.5%) than in 1951 (86.1%). The proportion of immigrants who can have a conversation in English, but not in French, had an even more pronounced decline, falling from 56.8% in 1951 to 15.4% in 2021, after reaching a low in 2016 (15.1%). The proportion of immigrants who could converse in French, but not in English, more than tripled from 1951 (9.1%) to 2016 (30.2%), before standing at 29.4% in 2021.

In Canada outside Quebec, just over 1 in 20 immigrants (5.5%) could have a conversation in French only or along with English in 2021, down slightly from 2001 (6.6%). The proportion of immigrants who could converse in English only or along with French was fairly stable over the same period, from 93.3% in 2001 to 92.9% in 2021.

In Quebec, more than half of all immigrants have French as their first official language spoken

Chart 3 
First official language spoken by immigrants and recent immigrants, Quebec, 1971 to 2021

In Quebec, 54.3% of immigrants had French as their first official language spoken in 2021, while one-quarter (25.2%) had English. This situation is almost opposite that from 1971, when more than half (51.5%) of immigrants were English-speaking and less than one-third (29.9%) were French-speaking.

These changes were driven by an increase in French-speaking immigrants to Quebec over the past few decades. In 1971, 33.9% of recent immigrants—those who had landed in Canada within the previous five years—were French-speaking, compared with 60.5% of those in 2016. Over the same period, 1971 to 2016, the proportion of recent English-speaking immigrants fell from 43.6% to 18.4%. However, this trend reversed in 2021: 54.5% of recent immigrants were French-speaking and 25.5% were English-speaking.

In Canada outside Quebec, the number of immigrants with French as their first official language spoken topped the 100,000 mark in 2021

Chart 4 
First official language spoken by immigrants, Canada outside Quebec, 1971 to 2021

In 2021, 102,000 immigrants had French as their first official language spoken in Canada outside Quebec, the majority of whom lived in Ontario (66,000), Alberta (13,000) and British Columbia (12,000). The proportion of French-speaking immigrants in Canada outside Quebec totalled 1.4% in 2021, up from 1.0% in 1996. However, the proportion of immigrants with English and French as their first official languages spoken fell slightly from 1.5% in 2001 to 1.1% in 2021.

Growth in the French-speaking immigrant population was supported by recent immigration: 24,000 French-speaking immigrants admitted in the five years preceding the Census of Population were living in Canada outside Quebec in 2021, representing 2.1% of all recent immigrants. The proportion of French-speaking immigrants to Canada who settled outside Quebec increased; among recent immigrants, it rose from 11.0% in 2006 to 17.9% in 2021.

Products

Table 15-10-0036-01, which provides information on the first official language spoken by immigrant status and period of immigration for the census years from 1971 to 2021, and table 15-10-0037-01, which provides information on knowledge of official languages by immigrant status and period of immigration for the census years from 1951 to 2021, are now available.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).