Responding to a Natural Phenomenon
If we analyze the enforcement and promotion of official bilingualism, we notice that, in fact, it is not understood by the government as a component of a new Canadian identity. Instead, the reasoning behind the official languages policy obeys to the need to comply with the economic rights of the domestic immigrant population, specifically the national, or autochthonous, linguistic minorities. But there is an increasing immigrant (international), or allochthonous, attraction to official bilingualism, and it is expressed in the following data from Statistics Canada: Almost 20% of French Immersion students in Canada outside Quebec are speakers of a Heritage Language at home. In Vancouver, it is 33.2%. Also, some specific points of concentration of trilingual population have been identified in BC outside Vancouver, as nearby Abbottsford - Mission (27%). This is the phenomenon we want to impart and celebrate!