New Pathway – Ukrainian News.
The Ukrainian language did not make it into the league of 20 immigrant languages which are spoken by at least 100,000 people in Canada (spoken most often at home), according to data from the 2016 Census released August 17 by Statistics Canada. Only 28,000 Canadians speak Ukrainian most often at home, while 69,500 speak it at home at least sometimes.
This stands in stark contrast with the numbers for the Polish and Russian minorities. More than 116,000 Canadians speak mostly Russian at home while 75,000 speak mostly Polish. This is despite the fact that, according to the latest data available for ethnic origin (the 2011 census), Canadians of (single and multiple) Ukrainian origin numbered 1.25 million compared with 551 thousand for Russian and just over 1 million for Polish. The 2016 report on ethno-cultural diversity is scheduled for release on October 25.
The contrast can be attributed primarily to the fact that a bigger share of Ukrainian Canadians are members of the earlier waves of immigration and their descendants, while recent immigrants form a much bigger share of the Russian and Polish groups. For example, in 1981, there already were almost 530,000 Canadians of Ukrainian origin compared with less than 255,000 of Polish origin, while the Russian origin numbers weren’t even posted.
As members of the Third (Post WWII) immigration wave, who are known for their dedication to the preservation of the Ukrainian language, began to pass away, this resulted in a concurrent decline in the number of Canadians listing Ukrainian as their mother tongue (language first learned and still spoken). This amounted to an eight per cent decrease between 2011 and 2016.
However, during the same period, the number of Canadians who speak mostly Ukrainian at home increased by 11%, due to the influx of new Ukrainian immigrants.
Another statistic from the 2016 Census, which stands out, is that the number of Canadians who speak Russian mostly or somewhat at home (194 thousand), outnumbers those who consider Russian as their mother tongue (188 thousand). The former number, likely, includes those from the recent Ukrainian immigration who consider Ukrainian their mother tongue but speak Russian at home.
This article used the numbers provided by René Houle from the Centre for Ethnocultural, Language and Immigration Statistics at Statistics Canada.
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