Census of Population: Language, mobility and migration

The fourth round of data from the 2001 Census of population is released today, profiling the changes in the composition of Canada's language groups, and migration and mobility patterns.

English, French and many other languages

Canada is becoming more and more a multilingual society in the wake of growing numbers of immigrants whose mother tongue is neither English nor French, according to new data from the 2001 Census. Mother tongue is defined as the first language a person learned at home in childhood and still understood at the time of the census.

Canadians reported more than 100 languages in completing the census question on mother tongue. The list includes languages long associated with immigration to Canada: German, Italian, Ukrainian, Dutch, Polish, and so on. However, from 1996 to 2001, language groups from Asia and the Middle East again recorded the largest gains.

In 2001, almost 5,335,000 individuals, about one out of every six people, were allophones, that is, they reported having a mother tongue other than English or French. This was up 12.5% from 1996, three times the growth rate of 4.0% for the population as a whole.

The census also reaffirmed the position of Chinese as Canada's third most common mother tongue. Almost 872,400 people reported Chinese as their mother tongue, up 17.9% from 1996. They accounted for 2.9% of the total population of Canada, compared with 2.6% five years earlier.

Italian remained in fourth place, and German fifth, although their numbers declined. Punjabi moved into sixth, and Spanish slipped to seventh.

The census showed that 9 out 10 people speak English or French most often at home.

The proportion of the population that spoke French most often at home, 22.0%, was slightly lower than the 22.9% who reported it as their mother tongue.

The proportion of the population that spoke English most often at home, 67.5%, was appreciably higher than the proportion whose mother tongue was English (59.1%).

Only 10.5% of the population spoke a non-official language most often at home, far lower than the 18.0% who reported a non-official language as their mother tongue.

Just over 5.2 million people reported that they were bilingual, compared with more than 4.8 million five years earlier, an 8.1% increase. In 2001, these individuals represented 17.7% of the population, up from 17.0% in 1996.

Nationally, 43.4% of francophones reported that they were bilingual, compared with 9.0% of anglophones.

A nation on the move: 4 in 10 Canadians picked up stakes

From 1996 to 2001, about 11,710,300 individuals aged five and over changed residence. The overall rate at which Canada's population moved during this five-year period, while significant, declined to its lowest level in more than two decades. Movers represented 41.9% of the total population aged five and over in 2001, down from 43.3% in 1996 and down sharply from 46.7% in 1991.

Canadians who changed province or territory between 1996 and 2001 still headed west. However, instead of going all the way to the Pacific Ocean, they stopped at the Rocky Mountains. Alberta replaced British Columbia as the destination of choice.

By far, the largest net gain from migration was the 119,400 that occurred in the booming, oil-rich province of Alberta. Some 242,200 people moved into Alberta, and 122,800 moved out.

Much of the massive flow of migrants into Alberta was composed of young people. Individuals aged 15 to 29 represented 36% of the total in-flow into Alberta.

Detailed analysis of these new census data is presented in two online reports: Profile of languages in Canada: English, French and many others (96F0030XIE2001005, no. 5, free), and Profile of the Canadian population by mobility status: A nation on the move (96F0030XIE2001006, no. 6, free), both available on Statistics Canada's website (). Both HTML documents are illustrated by numerous tables and charts.

The report also links to various products and services available from the Census module, which was designed to provide easy access to census data using new electronic tools. Information in the module is organized into four broad categories: analysis, data, maps and reference material.

In addition, in the Community profiles module, data for language, mobility and migration are available for Canada and the provinces and territories, as well as for 27 metropolitan areas and nearly 6,000 cities, towns, villages and Indian reserves.

For more information, contact Media Relations (613-951-4636), Communications Division.