Section 2 Evolution of the population by mother tongue and first official language spoken

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2.1 Evolution of the population by mother tongue
2.2 Evolution of the population by first official language spoken
2.3 Geographic distribution of the population with French as first official language spoken
2.4 Relative proportion within municipalities of residence and geographic concentration index

2.1 Evolution of the population by mother tongue

The French-mother-tongue population of Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut was 2,555 in 2006 compared to 890 in 1951, an increase of 188%. By comparison, the English-mother-tongue population increased more than six-fold, totalling 65,410 persons in 2006 (an increase of 528%) while the population with a mother tongue other than French or English more than doubled (an increase of 137%), totalling 32,610 in 2006 compared to just under 14,000 in 1951.

Table 2.1 Population by mother tongue, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the territories as a whole, 1951 to 2006

A comparison of the territories shows that in 2006, Yukon had the largest French-mother-tongue population, both in absolute numbers (1,165) and proportionally (3.9%). In the Northwest Territories, the 1,000 persons with French as their mother tongue accounted for 2.4% of the population, compared to 1.3% for the 390 Francophones in Nunavut. Before the creation of Nunavut in 1999, there were more Francophones in the Northwest Territories than in Yukon, which has not been the case since then. However, Yukon has been the territory with the highest proportion of Francophones since 1991.

2.2 Evolution of the population by first official language spoken

As described in Section 1, the criterion of the first official language spoken  offers a more inclusive definition of the Francophone population, since it allows the inclusion of persons with mother tongues other than English or French in the Anglophone or Francophone population. Most persons with "other" mother tongues usually fall into the majority first official language spoken group. Nevertheless, the population with French as first official language spoken is usually larger than the French-mother-tongue population in a province such as Ontario, for example, where there is a large proportion of persons with mother tongues other than French or English. In other cases, such as New Brunswick, the use of the first official language spoken criterion yields practically the same result as the mother tongue criterion, since persons with "other" mother tongues comprise only 2.6% of the population.

In several respects, the situation in the territories is unique. The proportion of allophones is high there (32%), especially in Nunavut (72%), but within the allophone population the vast majority are persons with an Aboriginal mother tongue (84%).¹ The different language laws adopted by the territories all recognize the importance of Aboriginal languages, some of which have the status of an official language at the territorial level (whereas only English and French have this status at the federal level). Finally, these minority language communities, like the Francophone group, are acting from the perspective of preserving their language and not from the perspective of linguistic integration.²

In the territories, use of the first official language spoken criterion does very little to change the size of the Francophone minority population. By contrast, the Anglophone population goes from 65,410 using the mother-tongue criterion to 95,230 using the first official language spoken (FOLS) criterion (after redistribution of the English and French category). Thus, the "integration" of allophones in the territories basically works to the advantage of the Anglophone majority group.

Another point worth noting is that in the territories as a whole, the number of persons in the "Neither French nor English" category has consistently exceeded the size of the Francophone minority. However, the gap has steadily narrowed, to the point that the two groups were almost equal in 2006. Once again, this distinctive situation is largely due to the strong Aboriginal presence, primarily in Nunavut.

Table 2.2 Population by first official language spoken, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the territories as a whole, 1971 to 2006

Chart 2.2.1 shows that in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, the French-mother-tongue population size was slightly smaller than the French first official language spoken population in the 2006 Census, but not in the previous three ten-year censuses. Generally, when the French-mother-tongue population is equal to the French first official language spoken population, this means that the linguistic integration of persons with mother tongues other than English or French is not operating to the advantage of the minority language. When the French-mother-tongue population is larger than the French first official language spoken population, which means that in addition to excluding persons with mother tongues other than French or English, it includes some persons with French as their mother tongue who know English but no longer know French well enough to conduct a conversation. For this reason, they are included in the English first official language spoken group.

Chart 2.2 Number of persons with French as mother tongue and as first official language spoken, the territories as a whole, 1951 to 2006

2.3 Geographic distribution of the population with French as first official language spoken

Nearly half of the Francophones in the territories reside in Yukon, while 39% live in the Northwest Territories and 16% in Nunavut. The Francophone proportion of the population is 2.6% in the territories as a whole; it ranges from 3.9% in Yukon to 1.4 % in Nunavut. The majority of Francophones are concentrated in the capital of each of the three territories. Thus, 74% of the Francophones in the Northwest Territories live in Yellowknife, 70% of those in Yukon reside in Whitehorse and 68% of those in Nunavut live in Iqaluit.

Table 2.3 Number and distribution of Francophones within the territories and proportion of Francophones within the territory of residence, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the territories as a whole, 2006

2.4 Relative proportion within municipalities of residence and geographic concentration index

In this series of statistical portraits of official language minorities in Canada, we will not confine ourselves to presenting information on provinces or territories of residence. Because Francophones are not distributed evenly among the various geographic entities and because the proportion that they represent varies from one census division (CD) or census subdivision (CSD) to another within the regions, it is quite useful for the purposes of these studies to present statistics that take account of their relative share within their municipality of residence. In other words, the proportion that Francophones represent within their municipality may have a greater influence on their linguistic perceptions and practices than does their proportion within a larger region.

However, when we examined the distribution of Francophones in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut according to the relative weight of their language group within their municipality of residence, we found that all Francophones were living in a municipality where they accounted for less than 10% of the population.

Tables A-1, A-2 and A-3 in Appendix A for 2006, present the relative weight of the Francophone population within each of the regions and census divisions and within selected subdivisions included in them.

However, the municipalities vary in size, and in the case of urban agglomerations, for example, this information does not reveal whether Francophones are spread throughout the municipality or are concentrated in certain areas. It may therefore be useful to distinguish municipalities where Francophones are concentrated in a specific part of the geographic area from those where they do not exhibit any particular concentration. For this purpose, the distribution of Francophones throughout the geographic area is presented here using a concentration index.⁴ Table 2.4 shows that while all Francophones in Yukon and Nunavut are weakly concentrated within their municipality, this is not the case in the Northwest Territories. There, nearly three Francophones in four are averagely concentrated within their municipality of residence. It mainly consists of Francophones residing in Yellowknife. On the other hand, no Francophone population is strongly concentrated within its municipality of residence, whether in Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut.

Table 2.4 Distribution of Francophones within the region of residence according to the concentration index within their municipality of residence, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the territories as a whole, 2006

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Notes

1. However, this proportion greatly varies from one territory to another. When only single responses to the mother tongue question are considered, the proportion of Aboriginal-mother-tongue persons within the allophone population is 28% in Yukon, 70% in the Northwest Territories and 98% in Nunavut. For Canada as a whole, the corresponding proportion is 3.4 %.
2. While English and French are the official languages of Yukon, Nunavut recognizes three official languages (English, French and Inuktitut or Inuinnaqtun) and the Northwest Territories recognize eleven (English, French, Chipewyan, Dogrib, Kutchin-Gwich'in (Loucheux), North Slave (Hare) and South Slave, Inuvialuktun, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut and Cree).
3. Aboriginal-mother-tongue communities cannot count on international immigration to ensure their long-term survival. For this they must look to fertility, interprovincial migration and language mobility, although in fact, the latter factor almost never works in their favour.
4. See Appendix D for a description of the concentration index and the concept of dissemination area.