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    Portrait of Official Language Minorities in Canada – Francophones in Manitoba

    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

    The French-mother-tongue population of Manitoba was 45,5151 in 2006 compared with 54,200 in 1951, a 16% decrease (see Table 2.1). By way of comparison, the population with English as its mother tongue grew by 81% to 845,595 in 2006. The population with a mother tongue other than English or French, which constituted 21% of the province's population in 2006, declined by 5% to 242,400 in 2006, from 254,450 in 1951, despite strong international immigration in Canada as a whole in recent decades.

    Table 2.1 Population by mother tongue, Manitoba, 1951 to 2006

    Table 2.2 shows the average annual growth rate for the population of each mother tongue group since 1951. As may be seen, the growth rate of the English-mother-tonguepopulation exceeded that of the other language groups, except in the last five-year period. From 2001 to 2006, the "other"-mother-tongue population grew by an average of 1.5% per year, compared with an average annual growth rate of 0.33% for the English-mother-tonguegroup. The French-mother-tongue group experienced a period of growth during the postwar period (1951 to 1961), but has been declining ever since. This decrease was greatest in the 1970s and 1990s. By contrast, the mother-tongue population remained relatively stable in the 1960s and 1980s and in the period from 2001 to 2006.

    Accordingly, the French-mother-tongue population, which accounted for 7% of the Manitoba population as a whole in 1951, has seen its proportion steadily decline, falling to 4% in 2006 (see Table 2.1). Conversely, the proportion of English-mother-tonguepersons went from 60% in 1951 to 75% in 2001, before declining slightly between 2001 and 2006. This situation differs from that in Canada as a whole, where because of the strong increase in international immigration, the proportion consisting of the official-language groups is declining in favour of the "other"-mother-tongue group. In any case, for all language groups combined, the average annual rates of population growth, both positive or negative, have remained fairly low, never exceeding 2% since 1961 (see Table 2.2).

    Table 2.2 Yearly average population growth rate by mother tongue, Manitoba, 1951 to 2006

    The French-mother-tongue population outside Quebec resides mainly in two of its bordering provinces. The provinces of New Brunswick and Ontario alone accounted for 76% of all Francophones living outside Quebec in 2006. That same year, Manitoba Francophones accounted for 4.7% of the French-mother-tongue population outside Quebec, a decrease compared with 1951 when the proportion was 7.5% (see Table 2.3).

    Table 2.3 Number and proportion of Francophones in Manitoba within the Francophone population outside Quebec, 1951 to 2006

    2.2 Evolution of the population by first official language spoken

    As described in Section 1, the criterion of the first official language spoken (FOLS) offers a more inclusive definition of the Francophone population: it allows persons with mother tongues other than English or French to be included in the Anglophone or Francophone population. Most persons with "other" mother tongues usually fall into the majority FOLS group. As with the English-speaking group, 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 a large proportion of persons have mother tongues other than French or English. In other cases, such as in New Brunswick, the use of the FOLS criterion yields practically the same result as the mother tongue criterion, since persons with "other" mother tongues comprise only a small proportion of the population. In Manitoba, use of the FOLS criterion yields a slightly smaller Francophone population, despite a strong allophone presence. The relative share of the Francophone minority (according to first official language spoken) within the overall population of Manitoba is 3.8% (43,120) (see Table 2.4) while that of the French-mother-tongue population is 4.0% (45,515) (after equal reallocation of multiple responses). As for the Anglophone population, its relative share is 74.6% according to the mother tongue criterion and 95.2% according to the FOLS criterion, which reflects allophones' strong orientation toward English.

    Table 2.4 Population by first official language spoken, Manitoba, 1971 to 2006

    As shown in Chart 2.1, since 1981, the French-mother-tongue population has been slightly larger than the Francophone minority population (according to first official language spoken). Generally, when the French-mother-tongue population is equal to the French FOLS population, this means that persons with mother tongues other than English or French are not integrating linguistically to the advantage of the minority language. When the French-mother-tongue population is larger than the French FOLS population, this means that, as well as "other"-mother-tongue persons not integrating, some persons with French as their mother tongue no longer know French (but do know English) well enough to conduct a conversation in it. For this reason, they are included in the English FOLS group.

    From 1971 to 2006, the size difference between the French-mother-tongue population and the French FOLS population varied only slightly. The smallest difference observed between these two populations is 1,700 in 1971, while the largest is 3,000 in 1991. The French FOLS population exceeded the French-mother-tongue population only once, in 1971. Also, the French FOLS population decreased by 21% from 1971 to 1981, while the French-mother-tongue population declined by only 15%. During the other periods, both the French FOLS and French-mother-tongue populations declined slightly.

    Chart 2.1 Number of persons with French as mother tongue and as first official language spoken, Manitoba, 1951 to 2006

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

    The Francophone minority constitutes 3.8% of the Manitoba population. Nearly 60% of Franco-Manitobans live in the Winnipeg census subdivision (CSD), which includes the districts of St. Boniface, St. Norbert and St. Vital. There is also a not insignificant proportion of Francophones in more rural areas, namely census division (CD) No. 2. This CD includes the communities of Ritchot, Taché, St. Anne, La Broquerie and De Salaberry, and is home to 17% of the province's Francophones.

    2.4 Relative proportion within municipalities of residence and geographic concentration index

    In this statistical portrait, we do not just present aggregate information on Manitoba Francophones as a whole because Francophones are not distributed evenly among various geographic entities and their proportion of the population varies from one census division (CD) or census subdivision (CSD) to another within regions. We can provide more differentiated analyses by presenting statistics that take into account the relative share of Francopĥones within their municipality of residence. In other words, the proportion of Francophones within a municipality has more influence on their perceptions and their linguistic practices than does their proportion within a larger region.

    We therefore examined the distribution of Francophones according to the relative weight of their language group within their municipality of residence (see Table 2.5). This revealed that the majority of Manitoba Francophones live in a municipality where they constitute less than 10% of the population. Additionally, 16% of Manitoba Francophones live in a municipality where their relative weight is between 10% and 29%, and 7% live in a municipality where they constitute between 30% and 49% of the population. In the province as a whole, 3% of Francophones live in municipalities where they are in the majority.

    Table 2.5 Number and proportion of Francophones by their relative weight within the municipality of residence, Manitoba, 2006

    Table A-1 in Appendix A and the maps preceding it show the relative weight of the Francophone population within each of the census divisions and selected census subdivisions included in them in 2006.

    Information on the proportion of Francophones within their municipality of residence is quite useful in analysing Francophones' perceptions and language behaviours. However, 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 specific areas.

    As already noted, Francophones live in specific regions, and in each region, their proportions within municipalities vary. It is also useful to distinguish between municipalities where Francophones are concentrated in certain areas and those where they do not exhibit any particular concentration. For this purpose, the distribution of Francophones within their municipality's geographic area is presented here using a concentration index,2 which casts new light on the minority/majority ratio. Table 2.6 shows the usefulness of such a concept.

    Such information is highly useful in that the concentration of a language group within a given area, like its relative weight, will influence the potential language practices of its members.

    Table 2.6 Distribution of Francophones within the region of residence according to the concentration index within their municipality of residence, Manitoba, 2006

    The information derived from such an index of concentration is useful when it is compared with the data in Table 2.5. For example, while three in four Francophones live in a municipality where they constitute less than 10% of the population, the concentration index shows that only 14% of them are weakly concentrated within their municipality of residence. Conversely, for three-fourths of Franco-Manitobans, their concentration is average, and for 11% it is strong.

    Notes

    1. This number includes more than 8,000 persons who reported a Métis identity, which constitutes 18% of the Francophone population in Manitoba.
    2. Refer to Appendix D for a description of the concentration index and the concept of dissemination area.
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