Most people know that Canada has two official languages; French and English. A lot of people even know that a lot of this French speaking population is located in the province of Québec. All this is true.

However, what is often forgotten or unknown is that the French speaking population extends far beyond La Belle Province’s borders. In fact, there are over one million francophones in Canada living outside Quebec. Ontario’s French speaking community is the second largest in Canada with about half a million speakers.

While the French in Ontario and in Quebec is similar, and both communities can understand each other, there are some distinct differences, especially in the expressions and the accents used. There are many factors that help explain the variation in the way the language is used by its speakers. Franco-Ontarians will often find themselves in a minority situation, and are rarely monolingual due to the community where they live, they need to communicate in English to be able to get by day by day.

Minorities don’t usually have a choice; they will have to fight at some point or another for their rights. Franco-Ontarians have had to do so on many occasions. From the Règlement 17, a regulation applied by the Ontario government to ban the use of French as a language of instruction. To the SOS Montfort movement, where thousands of people gathered to oppose the government’s decision to close down the only Francophone academic health care institution west of the province of Quebec.

Francophones living in Canada (outside Quebec) often have to fend for themselves without any protection from laws to be able to live, work and study in French. They chose to live in French, and go to great efforts to be able to do so. Even the small victories can make a great impact for these communities. September 25^th marks another big “victory”, we celebrate the Franco-Ontarian flag day; it was mounted for the first time in 1975 on this same day.

Bonne journée du drapeau franco-ontarien à tous et à toutes !

The Franco-Ontarian flag explained: The green represents summer, while the white represents winter. The fleur-de-lys (on the left) is a symbol of French Canadian heritage. The right side shows the floral symbol of Ontario, the trillium.