After a meteoric rise since the 1970s, the number of new immigrants arriving in Quebec with French skills fell between 2016 and 2021, according to a new article from Statistics Canada.
In 1971, the proportion of “new” immigrants – those who arrived within the last five years – whose first official language was French was 33.9%.
After a peak in 1981, the trend declined before rising again, reaching an all-time high of 60.5% of recent French-speaking immigrants in 2016, almost double the figure in 1971.
A first fall in more than 30 years
However, the census shows the first downward trend since 1991: between 2016 and 2021, the proportion fell from 60.5 to 54.5%, a decline of six points in five years.
Conversely, the number of recent immigrants to Quebec with English as their first official language has increased: it was 18.4% in 2016 and 25.5% in 2021. However, this has nothing to do with the 43.6% in 1971.
An altered historical portrait
On a historical scale, the linguistic picture of immigration to Quebec has undergone a radical change: in 1951, the proportion of immigrants in Quebec who could converse in French was 38.4%.
Decades later, after many reforms and immigration and French policies, this figure rose to 80.5%, a little more than double.
This concerns immigrants in general, that is, people who are permanent residents of Quebec but were born abroad and whose arrival occurred less or more than five years ago.
Case of French in English Canada
Like almost all indicators of the vitality of the French language in Canada outside of Quebec, the immigration aspect is no exception and has been declining since 2011.
At that time, 6.4% of immigrants residing in Canada were proficient in French, before that proportion fell to 5.3% in 2021.
French-speaking immigration is often viewed by provincial and federal governments as a lifeline that sustains French-speaking communities outside Quebec.