Franco-Ontarian
There are more than 600,000 francophones residing in Ontario. According to the 2016 Canadian census, there were 550,600 people living in Ontario who declared French their first official language spoken, 490,715 people who declared French their mother tongue, and 277,045 Ontarians who declared French as the language they speak most often at home. Over 1.4 million Ontarians reported themselves as bilingual, and 1.3 million Ontarians reported partial or full French ethnic origins. French-speaking Ontarians constitute the largest French-speaking community in Canada outside Quebec, as well as the largest minority language group within Ontario, and French is the fourth most common ethnic background in the province after English, Scottish and Irish.
Official bilingualism in Canada
Manitoba is the only province that was officially bilingual at the time of its establishment.
Following the Red River Rebellion led by the Francophone Métis Louis Riel, the Manitoba Act was passed, creating the province and mandating the equal status of English and French in all legislative bodies, legislative records, laws and court proceedings. At this time, Manitoba had a majority Francophone population, but within 20 years mass immigration from Ontario and non-Francophone countries had reduced the Francophone proportion of the population to less than 10%. In 1890, the provincial government of Thomas Greenway stripped funding from the French school system and revoked the equal status of French, a controversial move that caused tension between French and English speakers throughout Canada.