Far more Okotoks and Foothills County residents have English as their mother tongue compared to provincial and national averages.
Language data recently released by Statistics Canada from the 2021 Census of Population shows more than 91 per cent of Okotoks residents, and almost 90 per cent of those in Foothills County, list English as their first language.
Those numbers are significantly higher than the provincial (76 per cent) and national (57 per cent) averages.
As far as French, Canada’s other official language, only 1.5 per cent of those in Okotoks and just one per cent in Foothills County list it as their mother tongue, figures that are comparable to the provincial average.
Okotoks had just over 2,000 people, or about seven per cent of the population, provide a non-official language as their mother tongue, topped by 460 people who speak Tagalog (Filipino). That number exceeds those who listed French (440) as their mother tongue.
Other non-official languages listed as the mother tongue of Okotoks residents include Spanish (235), German (185), Dutch (125), Punjabi (110), Polish (85) and Russian (70).
In Foothills County, more than nine per cent of residents listed a non-official language as their first language, with German as the clear-cut leader at 745. Other languages listed include Spanish (150), Dutch (135), Punjabi (100), Polish (85) and Russian (80).
The number of people who listed a non-official language as their mother tongue was much higher in Alberta and Canada as a whole, which both had a figure at just above 22 per cent.
