English is rising in Vaudreuil-Soulanges — and declining in Westmount: census

Vaudreuil-Soulanges, west of Montreal, noticed a giant bounce in its English-mother-tongue inhabitants. Westmount noticed a decline.

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Goodbye, Westmount. Hiya, Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

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There was a 14.2-per-cent improve within the variety of English mother-tongue Quebecers in Vaudreuil-Soulanges, a sprawling regional county municipality west of Montreal that extends to the Ontario border, in keeping with an evaluation by researcher Jack Jedwab.

In 2021, 37,135 individuals there declared English as their mom tongue, in contrast with 32,520 in 2016.

Among the many cities in Vaudreuil-Soulanges are Hudson, Pincourt, Rigaud, St-Lazare and Vaudreuil-Dorion.

Throughout the identical interval, the English-mother-tongue inhabitants declined in Westmount (a drop of seven.4 per cent) and Dollard-des-Ormeaux (a 4.7-per-cent drop). Each have lengthy been majority English-speaking municipalities.

Jedwab mentioned it’s too early to know what drove the inhabitants shifts, however a number of elements could possibly be at play:

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— A rise in non permanent international employees coming to Quebec to work on farms and in factories.

— The draw of decrease home costs in outlying areas.

— Resulting from a shift to working from dwelling amid the COVID-19 pandemic, some individuals now not really feel the have to be in greater city areas.

Clearer explanations should wait till October, when Statistics Canada is ready to launch knowledge about immigration and intraprovincial and interprovincial mobility, mentioned Jedwab, president of the Affiliation for Canadian Research.

Statistics Canada defines mom tongue as a language discovered in childhood that’s nonetheless understood.

These municipalities additionally noticed will increase in English-mother-tongue populations, in contrast with 2016:

— Laval (12.8 per cent improve)

— Gatineau (10.3 per cent)

— Kirkland (9.2 per cent)

— Metropolis of Montreal (8.5 per cent)

— Thérèse-De Blainville (8.5 per cent)

— Brossard (6.9 per cent)

— Sherbrooke (6.2 per cent)

— Côte-St-Luc (5.1 per cent)

— Longueuil (4.3 per cent)

— Quebec Metropolis (3.9 per cent)

— Châteauguay (3.7 per cent)

ariga@postmedia.com