Francophone immigration beyond the Bilingual Belt: wasting a precious resource

Inroads: A Journal of Opinion, Summer-Fall, 2008 by Charles Castonguay

(3) More precisely, beyond Quebec the Bilingual Belt includes all counties in northern and southeastern New Brunswick and in eastern and northeastern Ontario in which francophones make up ten per cent of the population or more. See Richard J. Joy, Languages in Conflict: The Canadian Experience (Ottawa: Author, 1967 and Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1972).

(4) Dyane Adam, Annual Report 1999-2000 and Annual Report 2000-2001 (Ottawa: Commissioner of Official Languages, 2000 and 2001), pp. 5 and 58-61 respectively.

(5) Jack Jedwab, Immigration and the Vitality of Canada's Official Language Communities: Policy, Demograpby and Identity (Ottawa: Commissioner of Official Languages, 2002), pp. 47, 22.

(6) Carsten Quell, Official Languages and Im migration: Obstacles and Opportunities for Immigrants and Communities (Ottawa: Commissioner of Official Languages, 2002), pp. 5-6, 60; Dyane Adam, "L'immigration et la francophonie canadienne," Francophonies d'Amerique, Vol. 16 (2003), pp. 27-35.

(7) Such detailed information is necessarily derived from the 20 per cent sample data. Sampling error makes the results highly approximate for small populations.

(8) Women tend to bear children relatively late in life nowadays, so that for the 2006 census data the five-year age group from 28 to 32 best approximates the parents' age group.

(9) A deficit between successive generations occurs when the reproduction ratio is less than 1. For example, the reproduction ratio of Ontario's francophone population in 2006 is 0.63. Its intergenerational deficit is consequently 0.37, or 37 per cent.

(10) Francophones born elsewhere in Canada make up the missing percentages in Table 1. For example, 31 per cent of francophones aged 25 to 34 in Alberta were born in Canada but not in Alberta or Quebec.

(11) The anglicization rate equals the net number of francophones aged 45-54 who have adopted English as main home language (the number of francophones who have adopted English minus the number of anglophones who have adopted French), divided by the total number of francophones aged 45-54.

(12) The necessary data for immigrants aged 15 or more at the latest census are supplied by the 2006 census summary table 97-555-XCB 2006042, available for free on Statistics Canada's website.

(13) See 2006 census summary table 97-555-XCB 2006042.

(14) Figures in this section are based on the 2006 census summary table 97-555-XCB2006033.

(15) Jean-Pierre Corbeil, Claude Grenier and Sylvie Lafreniere, Minorities Speak Up: Results of the Survey on the Vitality of Official-Language Minorities (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2007), pp. 11-13 and 99-100.

(16) Michael O'Keefe, Francopbone Minorities: As similation and Community Vitality (Ottawa: Canadian Heritage, 1998), p. 44.

(17) Statistics Canada, The Evolving Linguistic Portrait, 2006 Census (Ottawa, 2007), pp. 20-23.

(18) The 2006 census enumerated 38,300 francophones and 9,200 anglophones in Quebec who had immigrated during 2001-2006. This is a ratio of just over four to one. But the ratio between Quebec's francophone and anglophone populations is close to ten to one. Whence an advantage in relative terms of well over two to one for anglophone immigration to Quebec over francophone immigration.