Competencies in Canada in a globalisation context

If language assets provide a comparative advantage in a globalising world, Canada appears well placed. This Canadian case study examines evidence from a country with two official languages and a high proportion of immigrants in the population. Canada’s language wealth has grown as shown by total number of languages spoken and the growth in the number of languages; growth in the proportion who know English and French, and other languages; and the number of people knowing more than one language. Several factors affecting the growth of language wealth in Canada were analysed. Multicultural and bilingual policies have been influential. Though hard to quantify the economic and social benefits to the individual and society, soft evidence was found for such benefits. Allophones who work in both official languages earn a good living while retaining their heritage language. Furthermore, the economic benefit to proficient users of English was shown through multivariate analysis.