He who knows one, Knows none.
By Max Muller

Bilingualism is the ability to speak or write more fluently in 2 languages. In Canada this term has particular meaning it means the ability to communicate in both Canada’s official language i.e. English and French. Official language act it declares the equality of status, for English and French, for all government and federal departments.
According to linguistic census there were almost five million Canadians who speak their mother tongue other than English and the number has risen since then. There are almost 338000 students who study in school based French immersion program and almost 1.5 million students are taking core courses in other languages. Each province has increased their enrollment in immersion program by 1 to 5 percent since 2000 but eastern Canada has shown the maximum progress, British Columbia has their policy of first come served signup, which delayed their growth in bilingualism. Status of bilingualism showed a decline growth over past few years due to rise of other multicultural groups in Canada. Given the rise of different language group over the last years there is growing movement toward creating Canada as a multilingual nation. I totally support bilingualism, English and French school in Canada but I feel that there should be more options for other language as second language education. Metropolitan cities school has more options of second language courses. Courses like Spanish, Mandarin or Punjabi, for example – have been multiplying across Canada. There is an urgent need to support Canada as multilingual nation. This program is not just for immigrant to help them to keep alive their mother tongue although it is about celebrating multilingualism the way we celebrate multiculturalism in Canada officially, Studies have been done and it is concluded that large proportion of languages do not survive till their third generation. Third generation uses English and French as their dominant language and hardly speaks a fluent sentence in their ancestor language. Certainly looking at numbers, we can say that our society is becoming very globalized and it is extremely important and necessary for us to reach out of our English zone and at least speak one other language. Speaking more than one language is itself is an advantage and it has numerous benefits. Speaking language is, especially more than one is a constant learning process, our brain do some more extra exercise while speaking one and controlling other language, it keeps the brain actively engaged which actually can help in the delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Learning bilingual education during critical period in childhood has tremendous effect on mental development of children. Learning second language in childhood is itself a solving cognitive task not linguistic task. This task creates flexibility in child’s brain and increases their critical thinking and creative abilities. Recent studies showed that Bilingual score higher not only on language proficiency but also on tasks like divergent thinking, pattern recognition and problem solving. There are so many other invaluable lifetime benefits in learning other language .It opens a door to countless opportunities in life. You can work all over the world, travel your favorite place without having a feeling of being separated and enjoy full cultural experience.
Benefits of being a bilingual was
Supported by study conducted by Raluca Barac and Ellen Bialystok at York University in Toronto, Canada. The researchers tested a total of 104 children. They compared test results of English-speaking monolinguals to those of Chinese-English bilinguals, French-English bilinguals, and Spanish-English bilinguals. In the study, the researchers tested verbal and nonverbal cognitive abilities of 104 6-year-old children from the Toronto area. All were public school students, and from similar economic and social backgrounds. In addition to English monolinguals and English-French bilinguals, the study also included English-Spanish and English-Chinese bilinguals. Along with the switching task, the test consisted of three English language tests of verbal ability. The verbal tests measured vocabulary and children's understanding of such linguistic tasks as forming plurals, conjugating verbs, grammatical structure, and English pronunciation rules. For the switching task, How ever, all of the bilinguals could switch from one task to another more rapidly than could the monolinguals. Although English monolinguals performed better on vocabulary task basically because they have to learn only English. However, English-Spanish bilinguals scored nearly as well as English monolinguals. Thus result of switching task proves that bilingual education have impact on growth of cognitive development.

Raluca Barac and Ellen Bialystok (2011). Cognitive development of bilingual children. Language Teaching, 44, pp 36-54. doi:10.1017/S0261444810000339.