Census data on language show tip of statistical iceberg about Canada’s diversity
OTTAWA — Reis Pagtakhan emphasizes the plural when he talks about the Filipino grocery stores, restaurants, newspapers and radio programs that now populate Winnipeg, decades after his family first came to the city.
This week, Pagtakhan’s observations about the rise of Tagalog in Winnipeg are expected to get some statistical backing when the latest tranche of census data details Canada’s linguistic diversity. It is anticipated that the language heard in those Filipino stores and restaurants and on radio shows — Tagalog — will be among the fastest-growing since 2011.
For Pagtakhan, the change around Winnipeg is a far cry from when his parents arrived in Canada in the 1960s and there were only a few hundred Filipino families in the region.
Now, “you have tens of thousands of people from the Philippines who are here, many of whom speak Tagalog. … It’s just spoken widespread,” said Pagtakhan, an immigration lawyer.