Within the belt, however, the relative concentration of English and French-speakers is uneven, and rare are those areas with an equal percentage of the two language groups. Hence it is expected that one language will be dominant in a given area. As rates of bilingualism are higher within the "belt" there is more opportunity for language contact; it is within the 'belt" that the respective impact of learning French or English as a second language within school and its use in economic and/or social contexts can be mutually beneficial. The old adage "use it or lose it" applies to many facets of learning, and language is by no means an exception. When it comes to second language acquisition, to retain what is acquired at school is dependent on the ability to put it into practice. That which follows will examine the rates of official language bilingualism in the country's national capital region which indeed falls within the "bilingual belt". It is also an area where there is a strong incentive to acquire the second official language as more than 40% of the country's federal civil service is concentrated there. Ottawa is unique. As one observer noted with respect to Ottawa, "It's a political town like no other, a city of affluent, highly-educated people, many of whom work, or aspire to work, in the civil service. To do that, you need to speak French and parents face huge pressure to enroll their children in French Immersion programmes."

[Gatineau] is the province of Quebec's most bilingual region with some 64% of the population reporting knowledge of both English and French. On the basis of age cohort, one observes that Gatineau's anglophones acquire knowledge of French early and by the age of 15 some threequarters report knowledge of English and French. In the case of francophones, it is in the late teens as they enter the workplace that their degree of bilingualism jumps considerably and remains at a similar level across the lifecycle. For their part, the level of reported bilingualism is lower amongst Gatineau anglophones in the upper age cohorts. That does not imply that it is in decline and may indeed reflect a generational shift in the degree to which anglophones are learning the French language. When it comes to allophones, they fall somewhere in between the two official language groups in terms of the level of bilingualism in the earlier age cohorts. The rate of reported bilingualism is similar for Gatineau's anglophones and allophones that are between the ages of 15-19. Those allophones over the age of 30 have lower rates of reported bilingualism. That is possibly attributable to the same generational shift in their acquisition of the two official languages.

Beyond the public service, the linguistic imbalance is much wider when looking at the use of English and French in the workplace in its entirety in Ottawa and Gatineau respectively. In Ottawa, in 2006, some 98% of anglophones report using English most often at work. For their part, nearly two-thirds of francophones report using English a majority of time in their workplace, another one in five report using both English and French, and approximately one in six use French most often at work. As to allophones, nine in ten report using English most often at work on the Ontario side of the region's border. On the Quebec side of the NCR in Gatineau, the pattern of language use in the workplace is quite different. Seven in ten francophones use French most often in the workplace in Gatineau, some one in four use English and the rest report use of both languages. For their part, some eight in ten anglophones use English most often at the workplace in Gatineau, 13% use French and 5% report use of both languages. In Gatineau, the allophones used English more often than they did French at work. The data cited here does not imply that the other official language is not used at all and so it may be used to varying degrees as the criteria here is only whether it is used most often. Yet when it comes to use of both languages equally, anglophones in Ottawa are least likely to do so.