French language on slow decline in N.B., new Statistics Canada data suggests

The use of French as a first official language is gradually declining in New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province in Canada, according to new census data from Statistics Canada.

A report Wednesday said the percentage of people in the province who speak predominantly French at home dropped from 28 per cent in 2016 to 26.4 per cent in 2021.

The overall bilingualism rate in the province has remained essentially stable at 34 per cent, which Michelle Landry, a sociology professor at the Université de Moncton, suggests is not a good thing.

"New Brunswick is an officially bilingual province, and you would expect it to increase year after year," said Landry, who holds a Canadian Research Chair on francophone minorities and power.

"But it's been stable for a really long time now."

The province is seeing a gradual decline in people who list French as their first official language, a category Statistics Canada says combines people who can carry on a conversation in French, consider French their mother tongue and speak primarily French at home.

The percentage is down to 30 per cent of the population, which is 1.6 per cent lower than it was in 2016.

New Brunswick is also seeing a decline in those who list French as their mother tongue, from 31.4 per cent to 29.5 per cent between 2016 and 2021.

The mother tongue is described by Statistics Canada as a language a person learned as a child and still fluently understands.

Immigration has impact 

For Landry, this does not come as a surprise.

Some of the data can be attributed to an increase in people coming to the province who list neither French nor English as their first official language. Statistics Canada says immigration, both from other countries and from English-speaking provinces, is a factor.

Landry sees it as an advocacy issue, and believes the province needs a more robust immigration policies. 

"This will have an impact on life, influence, power … so it's very preoccupying for the francophone community to be losing this weight in the province," she said.

"We need programs that will focus to maintain that balance, that linguistic balance in the province."

Acadian society wants say on immigration 

Sue Duguay, vice-president of the Acadian Society of New Brunswick, said the francophone community needs to have a say in immigration policy.

"We need to be heard when we talk about the immigration goals that we set for our communities," she said.

Although welcoming newcomers to New Brunswick is good, she said, a big portion of her group's time and energy goes into advocating for more French-speaking immigrants

She added that the current data does not even include the number of families who have moved to the province since the census was done and who don't speak French.

Duguay instantly thinks of rural francophone communities, which have a harder time attracting and retaining newcomers than larger cities do. More immigrants could be encouraged to live in these areas, she suggested.

"We need families to just see the potential in living in those rural communities as French-speaking people."

'A worrying trend' 

Shirley MacLean, the commissioner of official languages for New Brunswick, said in a statement that this is part of a worrying trend that has steadily seen an erosion of French as a first language in the province.

"With an almost 2 per cent decline in New Brunswickers whose maternal language is French in the last five years, it is clear that decisive action must be taken to protect the vitality of the French language and reverse this decline," she said.

"While a slight increase in the number of bilingual New Brunswickers is welcome news, the numbers released today are worrisome for the future of the French language in New Brunswick."