It’s not uncommon to hear some people speaking Tagalog in The Great White North.
This is because Tagalog is the sixth most spoken non-official language in Canada. It is also the basis of the national language of the Philippines called Filipino.
Based on the 2021 Census, 738,000 people, who trace their lineage to the Philippines, speak Tagalog. This is about the same size of the Filipino population in the country.
On March 6, 2025, Statistics Canada released a report aptly titled “The great Canadian language mash-up”.
“English and French are Canada’s two official languages, but many other languages and distinct dialects are spoken daily across the country, whether at home, while shopping, dining, or at family or social gatherings,” the agency noted.
Statistics Canada related that in 2021, almost all or 98 percent of Canadians knew English or French. Of these, around 10.7 million, or nearly three in 10 people, could converse in a non-official language.
Moreover, “Most Canadian households where everyone in a home can speak a non-official language also converse in another language at home, usually English or French.”
The report cited Tagalog as a specific example.
“Almost every household where all members knew Tagalog spoke the language at home (93 percent) with almost one in seven (15 percent) speaking only Tagalog at home, while just under four in five (78 percent) speaking Tagalog in combination with at least one other language,” the report noted.
Tagalog and other non-official languages are also heard at the workplace.
An infographic released by Statistics Canada on March 24, 2025 stated that in 2021, a total of 669,000 Canadian workers used a language other than English or French at work. That number represents 3.9 percent of all Canadian workers.
The same material also indicated that health care and social assistance, retail trade, and accommodation and food services are the industries with the largest number of people who use a non-official language at work.
Mandarin, Punjabi, Cantonese, Spanish, and Hindi are the top five non-official languages spoken at work, with Tagalog coming in at sixth place.
The March 24, 2025 infographic shows that 28,000 people spoke Tagalog at work in 2021, and they are typically found in the health care and social assistance sector.
By speaking Tagalog at home and at work, Filipinos are able to preserve their unique culture and heritage.
In addition to serving as repository of knowledge and tradition, language also plays an important role in shaping identity and building connection to the community.
Cultural groups are also key in keeping Tagalog alive in Canada.
One example is the Vancouver-based National Pilipino Canadian Cultural Centre or simply NPC3.
The NPC3 has organized a Tagalog language and heritage course, a Saturday learning opportunity through history, arts and culture that started on February 1, 2025.
The weekend courses held at the 411 Seniors Centre (3502 Fraser Street) end on April 26.
An article on the website of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) of the Philippine government traces the history of the development of Filipino as a national language based on Tagalog.
“The emergence of a national language that could unite the whole country is the realization of a dream that goes back to the year 1935. President Manuel L. Quezon of the Commonwealth of the Philippines made this possible through the inclusion of an article in the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines regarding the development of a national language,” author Paz M. Belvez wrote.
Belvez, a retired professor of the Philippine Normal College, related that a national committee was struck, and the group recommended Tagalog as the basic of the national language called Pilipino at the time.
The national language issue was taken up again during the 1973 Constitutional Convention. A committee created by the assembly recommended replacing Pilipino with a “common national language to be known as Filipino”.
“FILIPINO, the national language of the Philippines was finally settled in the 1987 Constitution,” Belvez wrote.
