Immigration is fuelling a growth in Canada’s linguistic diversity, according to Statistics Canada.
New census data released Wednesday shows that 4.6-million Canadians predominantly speak a language other than English or French at home.
According to StatCan, that represents a record 12.7 per cent of the overall population.
The increase is largely due to a surge of Canadians who speak predominantly South Asian languages, according to the data.
English and French remain the most commonly spoken languages in the country.
More than nine in 10 Canadians speak one of the two official languages at home regularly.
English was the first official language spoken by 75.5 per cent of Canadians in 2021, up from 74.8 per cent in 2016.
The proportion of Canadians who spoke French fell from 22.2 per cent to 21.4 per cent, despite the language being spoken by an increasing number of us.
StatCan said the proportion of Canadians who spoke predominantly French at home decreased in all the provinces and territories, except Yukon.
The proportion of bilingual English-French Canadians remained virtually unchanged from 2016 at 18 per cent.
Just over 41 per cent of Canadians said they could conduct a conversation in more than one language, up from 39 per cent. One in 11 said they could speak three or more languages.
You can see all of the data from Wednesday’s report by clicking here.
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