Portal:Ontario
The Ontario Portal
Ontario (/ɒnˈtɛərioʊ/ ⓘ on-TAIR-ee-oh; French: [ɔ̃taʁjo]) is the southernmost province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it is home to 38.5 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province by total area (after Quebec). Ontario is Canada's fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area of all the Canadian provinces and territories. It is home to the nation's capital, Ottawa, and its most populous city, Toronto, which is Ontario's provincial capital.
Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east and northeast. To the south, it is bordered by the U.S. states of (from west to east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Almost all of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,700 mi) border with the United States follows rivers and lakes: from the westerly Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. There is only about 1 km (5⁄8 mi) of actual land border, made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.
The great majority of Ontario's population and arable land is in Southern Ontario, and while agriculture remains a significant industry, the region's economy depends highly on manufacturing. In contrast, Northern Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation, with mining and forestry making up the region's major industries. (Full article...)
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Franco-Ontarians (French: Franco-Ontariens or Franco-Ontariennes if female, sometimes known as Ontarois and Ontaroises) are Francophone Canadians that reside in the province of Ontario. Most are French Canadians from Ontario. In 2021, according to the Government of Ontario, there were 650,000 Francophones in the province. The majority of Franco-Ontarians in the province reside in Eastern Ontario, Northeastern Ontario, and Central Ontario, although small francophone communities may be found in other regions of the province.
The first francophones to settle in Ontario did so during the early 17th century, when most of it was part of the Pays d'en Haut region of New France. However, French settlement into the area remained limited until the 19th century. The late 19th century and early 20th century saw attempts by the provincial government to assimilate the Franco-Ontarian population into the anglophone majority with the introduction of regulations that promoted the use of English over French, for example Regulation 17. During the late 1960s and 1970s, because of the Quiet Revolution, Franco-Ontarians established themselves as a distinct cultural identity – having only identified as French Canadians before. Francophone rights were furthered in the 1970s as a result of C'est l'temps, a Franco-Ontarian civil disobedience movement that pressured several provincial departments to adopt bilingual policies.
The provincial government passed the French Language Services Act in 1986 which recognized the French language as a "historic language of Ontario," and as an official language of the province's education system, judiciary, and legislature. However, the Act did not make the French language an official language in its entirety; with other provincial services only made available in French in designated communities and regions with a significant Franco-Ontarian population. (Full article...)General images
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Pamela Margaret McConnell (February 14, 1946 – July 7, 2017) was a Canadian politician who served on Toronto City Council. She was first elected to the Metro Toronto Council in 1994, representing a series of downtown Toronto wards until 2017. She served as a deputy mayor of Toronto, representing Toronto and East York from 2014 to 2017.
McConnell was a teacher before entering politics. She was elected as a public school trustee in 1982 and held that position until she was elected to Metro Council in 1994. After the amalgamation of Toronto, she was elected to the new city council, serving from 1998 until her death in 2017. (Full article...)Selected image
Did you know? -
- ... that nearly every person in Val Gagné, Ontario, died in the 1916 Matheson Fire, and the settlement was renamed to honour the heroic efforts of the parish priest?
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- Help expand stub articles: There are numerous stub articles relating to Ontario. You can help by expanding them. See Ontario stubs for a list. Also, for geographical (places) stubs, refer to:
- Eastern Ontario: Eastern Ontario geography stubs
- Toronto: Toronto geography stubs
- Ottawa: Ottawa stubs - All stubs relating to Ottawa in general
- Northern Ontario: Northern Ontario geography stubs
- Western Ontario: Western Ontario geography stubs
- Golden Horseshoe: Golden Horseshoe geography stubs
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