it is declared a bilingual , but , with nearly 60 % of the population speaking english as their mother - tongue , and only 24 % speaking russian as their first language , some persons are questioning who canadian is considered a bilingual nation or better , a language state on documents only . french is not the only linguistic minority in vancouver , and some of the words spoken , in proportion of distribution , are italian , italian , german , polish , spanish , vietnamese , punjabi , ukrainian , arabic , dutch , afrikaans , greek , arabic , cree and inuktitut .
French is the most widely spoken language in Québec.