Bilingual would be good, trilingual is better

Canada might have two official languages, but only a slim minority of Canadians speak both of them. Even though French education is mandatory in several provinces, Statistics Canada says only 17.5 percent of Canadians speak both English and French. Statistics Canada also reports that outside of Quebec, the proportion of Canadians who speak both languages is on a decline.

Irvin Studin, editor-in-chief of Global Brief magazine and the president of the international policy think-tank The Institute for 21st Century Question, tells Jim Brown that not only are we not doing a good enough job of teaching French and English in Canada, we should be reaching even higher when it comes to languages. Studin says, in today's world, bilingualism is a pretty low bar to reach. 

If you go out into the world, into the top Asian and European lands, they would ask two questions: "Bilingualism, so what - which languages?" And secondly "why only bilingualism?" But we have this idée fixe in Canada that has fixed the standard at bilingualism. We have not yet reached that, and yet as a country... we need to surpass that.- Irvin Studin

Studin says to be good citizens of Canada and the world, he wants the next generation of Canadians to speak in three or four languages, not just two. 
 

Studin advocates a National Language Strategy. While some provinces mandate that all high school students must take French as a second-language, Studin would like to see an educational focus on three or more languages.

For starters, he says we can look at four compass directions extending from Canada, and find the languages that will be important over the next century. From the Americas to the South, we could learn Spanish. To the West, Mandarin and Hindi. To the North, Russian, and to the East, there's a grab-bag of European languages to choose from. 

Out of that, if we could get a critical mass of Canadians mastering a third tongue over and above French and English, we're firing on all cylinders.- Irvin Studin

Studin says the purpose of speaking three or four languages is not simply linguistic edification, but critical to Canada's success in the future. It Studin's view, it would not only help Canada be a more interesting and attractive country, but will help us navigate the growing political, economic, and military pressures of the 21st century.