What’s unclear, however, is whether the situation is improving or getting worse.
According to the poll of 800 adults in B.C. conducted Dec. 8–10, 2023, 59 percent of mobile phone users had received phone calls or messages in Cantonese or Mandarin over the past two months. That number is up 8 percent from a similar poll conducted in December 2021.
“Mobile phone users in British Columbia aged 55 and over are more likely to receive calls or messages in a foreign language (63%) than their counterparts aged 18-to-34 (53%),” said Mario Canseco, president of Research Co. “Conversely, about one-in-four mobile phone users in British Columbia aged 18-to-34 (24%) have dealt with messages of a political nature over the past two months.”
In Metro Vancouver in the past two months, 69 percent of mobile phone users received phone calls or messages in a foreign language. The proportion of respondents who had received the messages was lower in the Fraser Valley (55 percent), Vancouver Island (45 percent), Southern B.C. (42 percent), and Northern B.C. (27 percent).
While the number of people receiving calls in Cantonese or Mandarin is on the rise, the incidence of “scam” phone calls and messages was lower in late 2023 compared to late 2021. Across British Columbia, a total of 42 percent of mobile phone users reported receiving phone calls and messages from an individual saying they represented a government agency like the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) over the past two months. That number was 8 percent lower than the December 2021 survey.
Residents of the Fraser Valley are more likely to have received the “scam” phone calls or messages over the past two months (50 percent) compared with residents of Vancouver Island (44 percent), Northern B.C. (42 percent), Metro Vancouver (41 percent), and Southern B.C. (34 percent).
