Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - March 2008
For many immigrants, the biggest challenge upon coming to Canada is learning one of the two official languages. More and more frequently, immigrants are avoiding doing just that. According to the latest census data released from Statistics Canada last week, many immigrants are living and working in Canada, despite being unable to speak either English or French.
The two most-chosen provinces for new arrivals in Canada are British Columbia and Ontario. In B.C. 30 per cent of new arrivals do not work in English or French. In Ontario, that number is at approximately 20 per cent.
The most-spoken languages in Canada, after English and French are Chinese, Italian and German. However, the growth in Punjabi-speakers is expected to bump that language into fourth place by the year 2008.
Though the proportion of immigrants living and working in their native language has not changed significantly over the past five years, some experts are speaking out against the trend, saying that, despite providing comfort to a new arrival, limiting their language growth will end up doing more harm than good in the end.
Immigrants who do not learn to speak English or French tend to confine themselves to their own cultural community within Canada. Oftentimes, these immigrants claim that they want to pass their language, and way of life, onto their children, whose ties to their home country are threatened by overexposure to Canadian culture.
However, there is a balance to be struck between the two extremes. Learning English or French need not threaten the immigrant culture, and interaction between the various ethnic communities in Canada can strengthen this country.
�We need to get out of these [ethnic] enclaves and reach out to the broader community,� said Balwant Sanghera, head of the Punjabi Language Education Association. �We should all try to learn at least one of the two official languages of Canada [�] The more languages we know the better.�
Besides strengthening relations within communities, there are also economic advantages to learning a common language. Immigrants who learn English or French tend to make more money in Canada and advance further in their careers than those who do not.
Source: The Globe and Mail
