Mandarin now one of the most common mother languages in Canada

A recent census report found Mandarin is the main non-official language spoken at home in Toronto and Vancouver, the first- and third-largest urban centers in Canada.

The vast majority of the Canadian population commonly uses English and French, Canada's official languages. However, 4.6 million Canadians (12.7 percent) speak a language other than English or French predominantly 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. In 2021, more than a half-million Canadians mainly spoke Mandarin at home, and more than half a million spoke Punjabi.

The report found that almost 280,000 of nearly 6.2 million inhabitants or 4.5 percent speak Mandarin as their mother tongue in the Greater Toronto Area, meaning it is their first language learned at home and still understood as of now. Cantonese is close behind with 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 in keeping with larger trends with Mandarin in first place nationally as well.

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 professor of sociology at the University of Saskatchewan who studies global diasporas found that the 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 professor of sociology 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 Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeastern Asia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam," Zhang said. "In addition to Chinese mainland, Mandarin is also a major language in Singapore and Taiwan."

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

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

A recent incident in Vancouver in which a white man who identified himself as a lawyer berated women for not speaking English. He shouted at two women who spoke in Chinese when they tried to purchase tickets for the SkyTrain.

"You're in Canada now," he said.

Doris Wai Ki Mah, a co-founder of the Stand With Asians Coalition said she was very angry with the racist. "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 contribute to enrich culture and strengthen the economy in Canada, for example, the Chinese restaurants have positively contributed to the economy.

"But there is a lack of services to 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," said Zhang.

John Paul Catungal, a professor in critical race and ethnic studies at the University of British Columbia, told Vancouver Sun that, "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."

He noted that the increasing number of diverse languages spoken by Canadians meant that policies and programs put in place by governments and institutions "need to be responsive to shifts in language and demographics, if they are to be effective at reaching broad swaths of the community".