Mandarin stands out in Toronto and Vancouver

A recent census report found that Mandarin is the main nonofficial language spoken at home in Toronto and Vancouver, the first- and third-largest cities in Canada.

The vast majority of the Canadian population commonly speak English and French, Canada's official languages. However, 4.6 million Canadians, or 12.7 percent, speak a language other than English or French at home, according to a 2021 census report on linguistic diversity released by Statistics Canada on Aug 17.

Other than English and French, Mandarin and Punjabi were Canada's most widely spoken languages. Last year, more than half a million Canadians spoke Mandarin at home, and more than half a million spoke Punjabi.

The report found that the mother tongue of almost 280,000 of nearly 6.2 million inhabitants, or 4.5 percent, in the Greater Toronto Area is Mandarin, meaning it is their first language learned at home. Cantonese followed closely behind at 4.3 percent.

Mandarin, Punjabi and Cantonese are the most commonly spoken languages in the Vancouver area after English, with nearly 500,000 people speaking one of the three languages at home on a regular basis.

Those numbers are also keeping with larger trends, as Mandarin is also first place nationally as well.

Immigrant contributions

The increase in immigration from Asian countries contributes to the language diversity and the growth of Asian languages, according to StatCan.

Peter S. Li, a sociology professor at the University of Saskatchewan who studies the global diaspora, found that migration shifts have been influenced by political and economic forces in China, as well as changes in Canada's immigration policy.

"It was after the mid-1990s that immigration from China expanded due to Canada's greater emphasis on admitting economic immigrants and to China's growing middle class. The continuous arrival of well-educated and urban-based immigrants from China is likely to change the population composition and identity complexity of the Chinese community in Canada," Li wrote in a paper.

Zhang Weiguo, an associate sociology professor at the University of Toronto, told China Daily that although Mandarin is an official language of China, Mandarin is also the second-most widely spoken language in the world. The growth of Mandarin speakers in Canada shows the influence of Chinese culture.

"Mandarin-speaking immigrants may arrive in Canada from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam," Zhang said. "In addition to the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, Mandarin is also a major language in Singapore."

Zhang said early Chinese migration was mainly from Hong Kong and Taiwan over the last four decades. Majority migration from the Chinese mainland started in the 1980s and rose from 1990s until the 2010s.

Zhang's study focused on anti-Asian racism since the COVID-19 pandemic, which has drawn much attention on increased discrimination reported by Chinese Canadians.

In a recent incident in Vancouver, a white man who identified himself as a lawyer berated two women for not speaking English. He shouted at the two women who spoke in Chinese when they tried to purchase tickets for the SkyTrain. "You're in Canada now," he told them.

Doris Wai Ki Mah, co-founder of the Stand With Asians Coalition, said she was very angry with the racist incident. "Canada is supposed to be a multicultural and inclusive society and we need to accept and celebrate different ethnicities," she told Global News.

Zhang said both Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking Chinese people have contributed to enrich the culture and strengthen the economy in Canada.

"But there is a lack of services for Mandarin-speaking Chinese in Canada in general, and in Toronto in particular. For example, the home and institutional care and social housing provision for Mandarin-speaking older adults cannot meet the demands of the group," Zhang said.

John Paul Catungal, a professor in critical race and ethnic studies at the University of British Columbia, told The Vancouver Sun that programs put in place by governments "need to be responsive to shifts in language and demographics, if they are to be effective at reaching broad swathes of the community".

"Migration policies, including targeted recruitment of labor migrants and international students, especially from Asian countries, explain why Asian languages enjoy the level of household use that they do," Catungal said.