Interpreting and Presenting Census Language Data

Traditionally, the language group approach was used because it generally addressed the concerns expressed by the main social and political stakeholders.2 In the last decade, Statistics Canada has observed new trends and limitations in the standard approach when it comes to depicting the richness, complexity and diversity of language situations and behaviours in Canada. [...] In 2011, since the long form was replaced by the voluntary National Household Survey, the questions on knowledge of official languages and languages spoken at home were added to the mandatory census short form to comply with the provisions of the Official Languages (Communications and Service to the Public) Regulations (section 3). [...] The choice of criteria defines the border between the target population and the rest of the population, or between the different population groups that make up the total population.12 The group of interest can therefore be compared with the rest of the population, or different groups can be compared with each other. [...] Following the work of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and the adoption of the Official Languages Act by the Government of Canada in 1969, use of mother tongue to indicate membership in an ethnocultural group required a change in the definition of groups based mainly on their language characteristics (Juteau 2015, p.  149). [...] The challenge relating to the processing of multiple responses is different in the case of the language approach.