Hi there, so where in Canada MUST you be able to speak French to live and work? Cheers, Pete

Probably only in Quebec, depending on your area of work you might able to get by with not speaking much French in Montreal or somewhere like that. I don't think you need French in the other provinces.

If you're serious about Quebec I think you'd really need a decent level of French to settle in, find work and make new Friends.

Also Northern Ontario but that's it, rural Quebec and rural Northern Ontario, not likely spots for immigrants.

Also New Brunswick. To some extent, Ottawa.

Plus positions in the federal government, anywhere, but you usually need to be a citizen for these.

New Brunswick? I was in Saint John a while ago... I didn't hear any French ....

Never heard French being spoke in NB, where did you here French spoke in NB? Have you actually been there? It is constitutionally bilingual, but have not personally experienced it. You need more than a computer, the Internet and Google to understand a culture and country.

Canadian census 2006 gave 33% French mother tongue for NB, although more towards the Quebec border.

I used to work in the blueberry fields in NB, up at Tracadie-Sheila, there are VERY few people up there who speak any English, and over by the Quebec border apparently 15% of the population only speak French according to the realtor my husband was with last week. That still leaves you a lot of people to talk to though I guess

In NB, places like Moncton, the east coast all the way up to QC near the Gaspe and along the St John River Valley from Grand Falls/Grand-Sault north to Edmunston are the french areas. You will rarely hear french in Fredericton or St. John. Places like Woodstock, St. Stephen are quite anglo.

In Ottawa, the east side (Vanier, Orleans) are the french areas (and even then you wouldn't need french to communicate with your neighbours or in shops) and then places like Rockland, Casselman, Hawkesbury are quite french and it would be more important to be able to speak french. In all of these places, only knowing english would not be a deterrant as most if not all of the locals can speak english (but they prefer french). Going east from Ottawa in a line going SE towards Cornwall, most of the areas north of that line are predominantly french speaking.

Hope that helps.

Maybe you didn't "here french spoke" in St. John but there are lots of francophones around Moncton and in central N.B and along the east Coast. They are mainly descendants of Les Acadienes. My neighbors here are from Bouctouche N.B. and are french speaking. There are also many french speakers around Edmunston and towards the Quebec border..

I have been living for almost 18 months in Caraquet on the Acadian Penisula of Northern New Brunswick and I can tell you that it is RARE to hear any English here. Even the French that is spoken is very different from the French of my schooldays - Acadian French seems to use many unique words - often derived from English.

or even 'hear' it for that matter

So I am guessing you have not actually been here?

My NB born neighbour is francophone, so if my Northern Ontario born mate...they converse in English as neither understands the others French!

I had a French Co- op student working with me over the summer, part of his job was to do some work over on the dark side, he told me that with some of the people he was working with they could not understand each other and they had to drop back to speaking English!