Canadian English and French in the same draft
Colour and centre are two whitespace-separated words, just like color and center; spelling does not change the convention. L’école and porte-monnaie each count as one chunk. A decimal such as 3.14 or 3,14 also stays one chunk. A non-breaking space still separates chunks. Switching language versions changes the interface, not an institution’s policy or the definition of your document.
Accents, emoji and byte limits
Compare Quebec with Québec: both have six visible characters, but the accented version can use more UTF-8 bytes. A decomposed accent may occupy an extra code point while remaining one visible character. For A😀é plus a line break the values are four graphemes, five code points, six UTF-16 units and nine bytes. Choose the unit named by the actual bilingual application; a character ceiling cannot safely be treated as a byte ceiling.
Counting basis
Default words are whitespace-separated chunks containing a letter or number. Internal apostrophes, hyphens and decimals stay together. The browser alternative can differ. Space switches affect visible-character counts, not original bytes or words. A Canadian school, employer or application form may define its own count and included sections. Do not assume a country-wide rule. Compare “colour/centre” with “couleur/centre”, curly apostrophes and decimal punctuation, and ask the receiving institution which titles or references belong in scope. The English and French versions use the same measurement rules.