Canada is officially bilingual, and all services provided by the federal government are available in English and French. The selection of Ottawa as the national capital, located on the Ontario-Québec border, reflects the long-standing political and cultural importance of the two founding nations. The 1996 census reported that only 1.7 % of Canadians don’t have at least some ability to speak one of the official languages; 18 % of Canadians are fluently bilingual. The majority speak English : 59% reported English as their mother tongue in 1996, while 24 % reported French and 16 % a nonofficial language. The most recent nonofficial languages in Canada are in order of prominence, Chinese, Italian, Punjabi, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish.