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Census data shows linguistic diversity on the rise in Canada – Saanich News

Published

2 years ago

August 18, 2022

A growing number of new immigrants to Canada are bringing with them increasingly diverse languages, setting a record for the number of Canadians whose mother tongue is neither English nor French, new 2021 census data reveals.

One in four people in Canada have a mother tongue other than English or French, and about 12 per cent of people predominantly speak a non-official language at home as of last year.

Proficiency in those languages tends to fade after a generation or two, however, Statistics Canada’s deputy head of the Centre for Demography said Wednesday.

“From 2016 to 2021, the number of Canadians who predominantly speak languages other than English and French at home grew significantly,” said Éric Caron-Malenfant at a media briefing.

The trend is mainly driven by immigration, and continued even during the pandemic when immigration slowed considerably due to COVID-19 health restrictions and related backlogs, Caron-Malenfant said.

The average age of new immigrants is typically between 25 and 35, he said.

“After that, when you have children in Canada, often more and more English and French will be spoken at home,” he said.

British Columbia speech-language pathologist June Cheung noticed that phenomenon play out in her own Cantonese-speaking family and community when she was growing up in Edmonton.

“My parents were the ones who originally immigrated here from Hong Kong whereas my siblings and I, we were all born here,” Cheung said in an interview.

“My parents would speak to my older brothers and myself in Chinese but often we would reply in English.”

The generational language shift inspired her masters thesis, which further showed how “heritage” language proficiency fades with each generation.

“By the time the second generation has kids, it’s very unlikely that they’ll choose to use a heritage language,” she said.

The trend was also true for French-speaking families outside of Quebec in most provinces, the census data shows.

The proportion of Canadians living outside Quebec whose first official language spoken is French was down to 3.3 per cent in 2021 from 3.6 per cent in 2016.

Statistics Canada attributes the decline to the fact that people whose first official language is French tend to be older, and haven’t consistently passed the language on to the next generation. Sometimes other languages can take over inside the home.

Cheung, who says she’s reinvested in her Cantonese-speaking skills, says fading language proficiency can create intergenerational divides.

“I can ask you where the bathroom is, versus being able to talk about your hopes and fears, your dreams,” she said. “It’s a lot harder to have those conversations sometimes if there is that language barrier.”

Mandarin and Punjabi are the most common non-official languages, with more than a million people predominantly speaking one of the two languages.

Statistics Canada noted a large increase in the growth of the number of Canadians who predominantly speak South Asian languages such as Punjabi, Gujarati, Hindi or Malayalam since the last census in 2016, a rise which was fuelled by immigration.

The growth rate of the population speaking South Asian languages was at least eight times greater than that of the overall Canadian population during the same period.

The massive increase in the growth of South Asian languages closely aligns with immigration trends from those countries.

At the same time, European languages like Italian, Polish and Greek are fading in Canada.

“This decline is primarily linked to the speakers of these languages aging, a significant proportion of whom emigrated to Canada before 1980,” Caron-Malenfant said.

Relatively few recent immigrants from those countries have recently landed in Canada, he said.

Regardless of their mother tongue, most people in Canada access services in one of the two official languages.

English and French are still by far the most common languages spoken in Canada and 90 per cent of Canadians speak at least one of the official languages.

—Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

Census Diversity

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Sutherland House Experts Book Publishing Launches To Empower Quiet Experts

Published

4 mins ago

September 19, 2024

Harry Miller

Sutherland House Experts is Empowering Quiet Experts through
Compelling Nonfiction in a Changing Ideas Landscape

TORONTO, ON — Almost one year after its launch, Sutherland House Experts is reshaping the publishing industry with its innovative co-publishing model for “quiet experts.” This approach, where expert authors share both costs and profits with the publisher, is bridging the gap between expertise and public discourse. Helping to drive this transformation is Neil Seeman, a renowned author, educator, and entrepreneur.

“The book publishing world is evolving rapidly,” publisher Neil Seeman explains. “There’s a growing hunger for expert voices in public dialogue, but traditional channels often fall short. Sutherland House Experts provides a platform for ‘quiet experts’ to share their knowledge with the broader book-reading audience.”

The company’s roster boasts respected thought leaders whose books are already gaining major traction:

• V. Kumar Murty, a world-renowned mathematician, and past Fields Institute director, just published “The Science of Human Possibilities” under the new press. The book has been declared a 2024 “must-read” by The Next Big Ideas Club and is receiving widespread media attention across North America.

• Eldon Sprickerhoff, co-founder of cybersecurity firm eSentire, is seeing strong pre-orders for his upcoming book, “Committed: Startup Survival Tips and Uncommon Sense for First-Time Tech Founders.”

• Dr. Tony Sanfilippo, a respected cardiologist and professor of medicine at Queen’s University, is generating significant media interest with his forthcoming book, “The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support.”

Seeman, whose recent and acclaimed book, “Accelerated Minds,” explores the entrepreneurial mindset, brings a unique perspective to publishing. His experience as a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and academic affiliations with The Fields Institute and Massey College, give him deep insight into the challenges faced by people he calls “quiet experts.”

“Our goal is to empower quiet, expert authors to become entrepreneurs of actionable ideas the world needs to hear,” Seeman states. “We are blending scholarly insight with market savvy to create accessible, impactful narratives for a global readership. Quiet experts are people with decades of experience in one or more fields who seek to translate their insights into compelling non-fiction for the world,” says Seeman.

This fall, Seeman is taking his insights to the classroom. He will teach the new course, “The Writer as Entrepreneur,” at the University of Toronto, offering aspiring authors practical tools to navigate the evolving book publishing landscape. To enroll in this new weekly night course starting Tuesday, October 1st, visit:
https://learn.utoronto.ca/programs-courses/courses/4121-writer-entrepreneur

“The entrepreneurial ideas industry is changing rapidly,” Seeman notes. “Authors need new skills to thrive in this dynamic environment. My course and our publishing model provide those tools.”

About Neil Seeman:
Neil Seeman is co-founder and publisher of Sutherland House Experts, an author, educator, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate. He holds appointments at the University of Toronto, The Fields Institute, and Massey College. His work spans entrepreneurship, public health, and innovative publishing models.

Follow Neil Seeman:
https://www.neilseeman.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seeman/

Follow Sutherland House Experts:
https://sutherlandhouseexperts.com/
https://www.instagram.com/sutherlandhouseexperts/

Media Inquiries:
Sasha Stoltz | Sasha@sashastoltzpublicity.com | 416.579.4804
https://www.sashastoltzpublicity.com

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Team Rachel Homan picking up where it left off after dominant curling season

Published

11 mins ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

As one of the top women’s rinks in the world over the last decade, expectations are usually quite high for the members of Team Rachel Homan.

The season after one of the most dominant campaigns in curling history is no exception.

Homan, Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes remain the top-ranked team in the world after going 67-7 in 2023-24 and claiming national and world championships.

“We’re not looking to have to surpass what we did last year in order to have a successful season,” Miskew said. “We’re trying to build off all of the work that we put in and try to be as consistent as we can out there.

“That’s all that we can really control. We’re going to try our best and that’s all we can do.”

The Ottawa-based team picked up where it left off last weekend by running the table at the AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic.

Homan’s side — guided by new coach Brendan Bottcher — completed an 8-0 performance with a 6-5 final victory over second-ranked Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland at the Cornwall Curling Club.

The squad outscored the opposition 51-23 overall.

Bottcher, who split with his four-player men’s team last spring, is also playing mixed doubles with Homan this season. He succeeded Don Bartlett as coach of Homan’s four-player team and is off to a perfect start.

“He’s got just a wealth of knowledge in strategy,” Homan said. “Obviously he was No. 1 or 2 in the world on the men’s side and that’s pretty tough to do. He’s got a few things that he thinks can help us.

“We’re trying to find a few percentage points here and there. He’s just such a positive person and just really great to be around.”

The team will return to the ice as defending champions at the Sept. 25-29 PointsBet Invitational in Calgary.

Bartlett decided to step back from his coaching role and do some travelling this winter. Bottcher is expected to be on the coach’s bench at most events this season.

Homan and Bottcher are also off to a good start on the mixed doubles front. They won a competition earlier this month in Saskatoon and plan to play several events this fall as they aim to secure a berth in the Canadian Mixed Doubles Trials.

Five teams, including reigning national champions Kadriana Lott and Colton Lott, have qualified for the Dec. 30-Jan. 4 playdowns in Liverpool, N.S. The winner will represent Canada at the Milan Olympics in February 2026.

Direct-entry qualifying events are set for Oct. 31-Nov. 3 in Abbotsford, B.C., Nov. 21-24 in Guelph, Ont., and Dec. 5-8 in Banff/Canmore, Alta. National rankings will then be used to complete the 16-team field.

The previous mixed doubles trials were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Curling Canada named Homan and John Morris as the Canadian duo for the Beijing Games in 2022, but they did not make the playoffs.

Morris won gold with Kaitlyn Lawes when the discipline made its Olympic debut at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

BIG SMOKE

The Grand Slam of Curling will hold its season-ending competition — the Princess Auto Players’ Championship — at its usual Toronto venue after all.

The circuit’s five-event calendar will conclude April 8-13 at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, according to the tour’s website.

The Players’ Championship dates and arena were marked as TBA earlier this month.

COACH HOWARD

Glenn Howard will remain as busy as ever on the curling scene even though he ended his four-decade playing career at the end of last season.

Howard will serve as coach of Team Chelsea Carey and Team Scott Howard for the upcoming campaign.

Carey, from Winnipeg, holds the No. 5 position in the women’s world rankings. Howard, from Tiny, Ont., has the No. 31 spot in the men’s rankings.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

Follow @GregoryStrongCP on X.

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TD CEO to retire next year, takes responsibility for money laundering failures

Published

12 mins ago

September 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – TD Bank Group, which is mired in a money laundering scandal in the U.S., says chief executive Bharat Masrani will retire next year.

Masrani, who will retire officially on April 10, 2025, says the bank’s, “anti-money laundering challenges,” took place on his watch and he takes full responsibility.

The bank named Raymond Chun, TD’s group head, Canadian personal banking, as his successor.

As part of a transition plan, Chun will become chief operating officer on Nov. 1 before taking over the top job when Masrani steps down at the bank’s annual meeting next year.

TD also announced that Riaz Ahmed, group head, wholesale banking and president and CEO of TD Securities, will retire at the end of January 2025.

TD has taken billions in charges related to ongoing U.S. investigations into the failure of its anti-money laundering program.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TD)

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