Census shows more language diversity in city

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The number of people in Brandon who speak a language other than English or French increased by almost 1,000 since 2016, according to documents from the 2021 census released earlier this week.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/08/2022 (1283 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The number of people in Brandon who speak a language other than English or French increased by almost 1,000 since 2016, according to documents from the 2021 census released earlier this week.

In the 2016 census, 8,145 people in Brandon listed their mother tongue as something other than English or French. Five years later, that total rose to 9,080.

When it comes to Canada’s two official languages, the number of native French speakers living in the Wheat City dropped from 620 to 485 in the same time frame, while the number of native English speakers rose from 38,480 to 39,020.

Native speakers of Indigenous languages declined slightly from 235 in 2016 to 225 in 2021.

Hannah Holt, the community outreach manager for Westman Immigrant Services — herself an immigrant from New Zealand — said that, since she joined the organization last October, she’s seen a post-pandemic increase in the number of people accessing WIS services, particularly from Ukraine.

The census figures show a 115-person decrease in the number of native Ukrainian speakers in Brandon, but those figures were recorded before the outbreak of war between Ukraine and Russia earlier this year.

Brandon’s smaller community of native Russian speakers saw a smaller decline from 175 in 2016 to 165 in 2021.

Despite the increase in the number of people with a mother tongue other than English or French, Holt said it hasn’t made it difficult for WIS to provide services.

“We’re really lucky,” she said. “Something like 60 per cent of our staff are newcomers themselves … so a lot of our staff actually speak other languages, but we also have a language centre, which offers interpretation services.”

Though Holt doesn’t know for sure, she hopes the availability of the services organizations like WIS provide, such as language and settlement assistance and housing and family supports, makes communities like Brandon a more attractive destination for immigrants.

WIS, being one of three organizations in Manitoba that help government-assisted refugees, draws people to Brandon, as well, which is an advantage for the city because newcomers contribute to an enlarged tax base and workforce.

Other attractive elements for a city like Brandon include large-scale employers such as Maple Leaf Foods.

“It’s great to see so many different newcomer restaurants popping up from different countries. We have an Ethiopian restaurant in Brandon, which blew me away when I moved here.”

When newcomers set up a restaurant or a grocery store based on their heritage, Holt said it not only adds to the city’s entrepreneurial spirit but gives fellow newcomers a sense of familiarity and home as well.

The City of Brandon’s director of economic development Sandy Trudel said the increase in the speakers of non-English or non-French languages isn’t just a sign of positive population growth, but also an injection of different experiences and skills.

“It’s exciting on all fronts. It’s great news,” she said. “They bring a very definite entrepreneurial mindset and it allows opportunity that wouldn’t have otherwise have materialized in the community because it’s … a different outlook on what they’re trying to pursue.”

The next release of census information, scheduled for Sept. 14, will be focused on Indigenous peoples and housing data. The release after that, set for Oct. 26, will provide details on citizenship, immigration, religion, mobility and ethnocultural factors.

The final release of 2021 census data will be Nov. 30, which will include data on education, labour and French instruction.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark

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