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.
Ministry of Francophone Affairs
Under the province's French Language Services Act, the provincial government provides French language services if a community or region's francophone population exceeds 5,000 or 10 percent of the community's total population. There are 25 areas of the province so designated. The office also has a role in the governance of Ontario's francophone public television network, TFO, as well as francophone school boards and other government offices, and acts as a liaison office between the government and other francophone cultural agencies and social services.