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.
Language policies of Canada's provinces and territories
Ontario has a regionalized language policy, where part of the province is English-only and other areas are bilingual. Province-wide services (such as websites and toll-free telephone numbers) are provided in both English and French. However individuals only have a "right" to French-language services in certain designated regions of the province under the "French Language Services Act" (1986). There are 25 regions so designated. These are: areas with 10% or more Francophones; urban centres with 5,000 or more Francophones; and areas previously designated by the Government of Ontario between 1978 and 1985. Notably this includes Toronto, the provincial capital and Canada's largest municipality (although not all of the regional municipalities of the GTA are included), and the National Capital Region including Ottawa, the national capital, as well as many other cities, counties, districts, townships, and towns. For the purposes of the policy, the definition of a "Francophone" was broadened in 2009. Previously it included only mother-tongue speakers, however it now includes allophones (people whose first language is neither French or English) who "have particular knowledge of French as an official language and use French at home, including many recent immigrants to Ontario for whom French is the language of integration".