What is the official language of Ontario?

Ontario's official language is English. Numerous French-language services are available under the "French Language Services Act of 1990 in designated areas where sizeable francophone populations exist.

Ontario

Ontario (; ) is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada and is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also 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, and to the south by the U.S. states of (from west to east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Almost all of Ontario's border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the west at Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. These are the Rainy River, the Pigeon River, Lake Superior, the St. Marys River, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, Ontario, to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall, Ontario. There is only about of land border made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.

Ontario is sometimes conceptually divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontario's population and arable land is in the south. In contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation.

The province is named after Lake Ontario, a term thought to be derived from ', a Huron (Wyandot) word meaning "great lake", or possibly ', which means "beautiful water" in the Iroquoian languages. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes.

The province consists of three main geographical regions:

Despite the absence of any mountainous terrain in the province, there are large areas of uplands, particularly within the Canadian Shield which traverses the province from northwest to southeast and also above the Niagara Escarpment which crosses the south. The highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at above sea level in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands and in hilltops near the Madawaska River in Renfrew County.

The Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. The temperate and fertile Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Valley in the south is part of the Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests ecoregion where the forest has now been largely replaced by agriculture, industrial and urban development. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment. The Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the surface area of the province; conversely Southern Ontario contains 94 percent of the population.

Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario (near Windsor and Detroit, Michigan) that is the southernmost extent of Canada's mainland. Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend slightly farther. All are south of 42°N – slightly farther south than the northern border of California.

The climate of Ontario varies by season and location. It is affected by three air sources: cold, dry, arctic air from the north (dominant factor during the winter months, and for a longer part of the year in far northern Ontario); Pacific polar air crossing in from the western Canadian Prairies/US Northern Plains; and warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend mainly on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontario's climate is classified as humid continental. Ontario has three main climatic regions.

The surrounding Great Lakes greatly influence the climatic region of southern Ontario. During the fall and winter months, heat stored from the lakes is released, moderating the climate near the shores of the lakes. This gives some parts of southern Ontario milder winters than mid-continental areas at lower latitudes. Parts of Southwestern Ontario (generally south of a line from Sarnia-Toronto) have a moderate humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfa"), similar to that of the inland Mid-Atlantic states and the Great Lakes portion of the Midwestern United States. The region has warm to hot, humid summers and cold winters. Annual precipitation ranges from and is well distributed throughout the year. Most of this region lies in the lee of the Great Lakes, making for abundant snow in some areas. In December 2010, the snowbelt set a new record when it was hit by more than a metre of snow within 48 hours. The next climatic region is Central and Eastern Ontario which has a moderate humid continental climate (Köppen "Dfb"). This region has warm and sometimes hot summers with colder, longer winters, ample snowfall (even in regions not directly in the snowbelts) and annual precipitation similar to the rest of Southern Ontario.
In the northeastern parts of Ontario, extending far as south as Kirkland Lake, the cold waters of Hudson Bay depress summer temperatures, making it cooler than other locations at similar latitudes. The same is true on the northern shore of Lake Superior, which cools hot humid air from the south, leading to cooler summer temperatures. Along the eastern shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron winter temperatures are slightly moderated but come with frequent heavy lake-effect snow squalls that increase seasonal snowfall totals upwards of in some places. These regions have higher annual precipitation in some case over.
The northernmost parts of Ontario – primarily north of 50°N – have a subarctic climate (Köppen "Dfc") with long, severely cold winters and short, cool to warm summers with dramatic temperature changes possible in all seasons. With no major mountain ranges blocking sinking Arctic air masses, temperatures of are not uncommon; snowfall remains on the ground for sometimes over half the year. Snowfall accumulation can be high in some areas. Precipitation is generally less than and peaks in the summer months in the form of rain or thunderstorms.

Severe thunderstorms peak in summer. London, situated in Southern (Southwestern) Ontario, has the most lightning strikes per year in Canada, averaging 34 days of thunderstorm activity per year. In a typical year, Ontario averages 11 confirmed tornado touchdowns. However, over the last 4 years, it has had upwards of 20 tornado touchdowns per year, with the highest frequency occurring in the Windsor-Essex – Chatham Kent area, though few are very destructive (the majority between F0 to F2 on the Fujita scale). Ontario had a record 29 tornadoes in both 2006 and 2009. Tropical depression remnants occasionally bring heavy rains and winds in the south, but are rarely deadly. A notable exception was Hurricane Hazel which struck Southern Ontario centred on Toronto, in October 1954.

Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the region was inhabited by Algonquian (Ojibwe, Cree and Algonquin) in the northern/western portions, and Iroquois and Wyandot (Huron) people more in the south/east. During the 17th century, the Algonquians and Hurons fought the Beaver Wars against the Iroquois.

The French explorer Étienne Brûlé explored part of the area in 1610–12. The English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into Hudson Bay in 1611 and claimed the area for England.

Samuel de Champlain reached Lake Huron in 1615, and French missionaries began to establish posts along the Great Lakes. French settlement was hampered by their hostilities with the Iroquois, who allied themselves with the British. From 1634 to 1640, Hurons were devastated by European infectious diseases, such as measles and smallpox, to which they had no immunity. By 1700, the Iroquois had seceded from Ontario and the Mississaugas of the Ojibwa had settled the north shore of Lake Ontario. The remaining Huron settled north of Quebec.

The British established trading posts on Hudson Bay in the late 17th century and began a struggle for domination of Ontario with the French. After the French of New France were defeated during the Seven Years' War, the two powers awarded nearly all of France's North American possessions (New France) to Britain in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, including those lands of Ontario not already claimed by Britain. The British annexed the Ontario region to Quebec in 1774. The first European settlements were in 1782–1784 when 5,000 American loyalists entered what is now Ontario following the American Revolution. The Kingdom of Great Britain granted them land and other items with which to rebuild their lives. The British also set up reservations in Ontario for the Mohawks who had fought for the British and had lost their land in New York state. Other Iroquois, also displaced from New York were resettled in 1784 at the Six Nations reserve at the west end of Lake Ontario. The Mississaugas, displaced by European settlements, would later move to Six Nations also.

The population of Canada west of the St. Lawrence-Ottawa River confluence substantially increased during this period, a fact recognized by the "Constitutional Act" of 1791, which split Quebec into the Canadas: Upper Canada southwest of the St. Lawrence-Ottawa River confluence, and Lower Canada east of it. John Graves Simcoe was appointed Upper Canada's first Lieutenant governor in 1793.

American troops in the War of 1812 invaded Upper Canada across the Niagara River and the Detroit River, but were defeated and pushed back by the British, Canadian fencibles and militias, and First Nations warriors. However, eventually, the Americans gained control of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The 1813 Battle of York saw American troops defeat the garrison at the Upper Canada capital of York. The Americans looted the town and burned the Upper Canada Parliament Buildings during the brief occupation. The British would burn the American capital of Washington, D.C. in 1814.

After the War of 1812, relative stability allowed for increasing numbers of immigrants to arrive from Europe rather than from the United States. As was the case in the previous decades, this immigration shift was encouraged by the colonial leaders. Despite affordable and often free land, many arriving newcomers, mostly from Britain and Ireland, found frontier life with the harsh climate difficult, and some of those with the means eventually returned home or went south. However, population growth far exceeded emigration in the decades that followed. It was a mostly agrarian-based society, but canal projects and a new network of plank roads spurred greater trade within the colony and with the United States, thereby improving previously damaged relations over time.

Meanwhile, Ontario's numerous waterways aided travel and transportation into the interior and supplied water power for development. As the population increased, so did the industries and transportation networks, which in turn led to further development. By the end of the century, Ontario vied with Quebec as the nation's leader in terms of growth in population, industry, arts and communications.
Unrest in the colony began to chafe against the aristocratic Family Compact who governed while benefiting economically from the region's resources, and who did not allow elected bodies power. This resentment spurred republican ideals and sowed the seeds for early Canadian nationalism. Accordingly, rebellion in favour of responsible government rose in both regions; Louis-Joseph Papineau led the Lower Canada Rebellion and William Lyon Mackenzie, first Toronto mayor, led the Upper Canada Rebellion. In Upper Canada, the rebellion was quickly a failure. William Lyon Mackenzie escaped to the United States, where he declared the Provisional Republic of Canada on Navy Island on the Niagara River.

Although both rebellions were put down in short order, the British government sent Lord Durham to investigate the causes of the unrest. He recommended that self-government be granted and that Lower and Upper Canada be re-joined in an attempt to assimilate the French Canadians. Accordingly, the two colonies were merged into the Province of Canada by the "Act of Union 1840", with the capital at Kingston, and Upper Canada becoming known as Canada West. Parliamentary self-government was granted in 1848. There were heavy waves of immigration in the 1840s, and the population of Canada West more than doubled by 1851 over the previous decade. As a result, for the first time, the English-speaking population of Canada West surpassed the French-speaking population of Canada East, tilting the representative balance of power.

An economic boom in the 1850s coincided with railway expansion across the province, further increasing the economic strength of Central Canada. With the repeal of the Corn Laws and a reciprocity agreement in place with the United States, various industries such as timber, mining, farming and alcohol distilling benefited tremendously.

A political stalemate between the French- and English-speaking legislators, as well as fear of aggression from the United States during and immediately after the American Civil War, led the political elite to hold a series of conferences in the 1860s to effect a broader federal union of all British North American colonies. The "British North America Act" took effect on July 1, 1867, establishing the Dominion of Canada, initially with four provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. The Province of Canada was divided into Ontario and Quebec so that each linguistic group would have its own province. Both Quebec and Ontario were required by section 93 of the "British North America Act" to safeguard existing educational rights and privileges of Protestant and the Catholic minority. Thus, separate Catholic schools and school boards were permitted in Ontario. However, neither province had a constitutional requirement to protect its French- or English-speaking minority. Toronto was formally established as Ontario's provincial capital.

Once constituted as a province, Ontario proceeded to assert its economic and legislative power. In 1872, the lawyer Oliver Mowat became Premier of Ontario and remained as premier until 1896. He fought for provincial rights, weakening the power of the federal government in provincial matters, usually through well-argued appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. His battles with the federal government greatly decentralized Canada, giving the provinces far more power than John A. Macdonald had intended. He consolidated and expanded Ontario's educational and provincial institutions, created districts in Northern Ontario, and fought to ensure that those parts of Northwestern Ontario not historically part of Upper Canada (the vast areas north and west of the Lake Superior-Hudson Bay watershed, known as the District of Keewatin) would become part of Ontario, a victory embodied in the "Canada (Ontario Boundary) Act, 1889". He also presided over the emergence of the province into the economic powerhouse of Canada. Mowat was the creator of what is often called "Empire Ontario".

Beginning with Sir John A. Macdonald's National Policy (1879) and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (1875–1885) through Northern Ontario and the Canadian Prairies to British Columbia, Ontario manufacturing and industry flourished. However, population increase slowed after a large recession hit the province in 1893, thus slowing growth drastically but for only a few years. Many newly arrived immigrants and others moved west along the railway to the Prairie Provinces and British Columbia, sparsely settling Northern Ontario.

Mineral exploitation accelerated in the late 19th century, leading to the rise of important mining centres in the northeast, such as Sudbury, Cobalt and Timmins. The province harnessed its water power to generate hydro-electric power and created the state-controlled Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, later Ontario Hydro. The availability of cheap electric power further facilitated the development of industry. The Ford Motor Company of Canada was established in 1904. General Motors Canada was formed in 1918. The motor vehicle industry became the most lucrative industry for the Ontario economy during the 20th century.

In July 1912, the Conservative government of Sir James Whitney issued Regulation 17 which severely limited the availability of French-language schooling to the province's French-speaking minority. French Canadians reacted with outrage, journalist Henri Bourassa denouncing the "Prussians of Ontario". The regulation was eventually repealed in 1927.

Influenced by events in the United States, the government of Sir William Hearst introduced prohibition of alcoholic drinks in 1916 with the passing of the "Ontario Temperance Act". However, residents could distill and retain their own personal supply, and liquor producers could continue distillation and export for sale, allowing this already sizeable industry to strengthen further. Ontario became a hotbed for the illegal smuggling of liquor and the biggest supplier into the United States, which was under complete prohibition. Prohibition in Ontario came to an end in 1927 with the establishment of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario under the government of Howard Ferguson. The sale and consumption of liquor, wine, and beer are still controlled by some of the most extreme laws in North America to ensure that strict community standards and revenue generation from the alcohol retail monopoly are upheld. In April 2007, Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Kim Craitor suggested that local brewers should be able to sell their beer in local corner stores; however, the motion was quickly rejected by Premier Dalton McGuinty.

The post-World War II period was one of exceptional prosperity and growth. Ontario has been the recipients of most immigration to Canada, largely immigrants from war-torn Europe in the 1950s and 1960s and following changes in federal immigration law, a massive influx of non-Europeans since the 1970s. From a largely ethnically British province, Ontario has rapidly become culturally very diverse.

The nationalist movement in Quebec, particularly after the election of the "Parti Québécois" in 1976, contributed to driving many businesses and English-speaking people out of Quebec to Ontario, and as a result, Toronto surpassed Montreal as the largest city and economic centre of Canada. Depressed economic conditions in the Maritime Provinces have also resulted in de-population of those provinces in the 20th century, with heavy migration into Ontario.

Ontario's official language is English. Numerous French-language services are available under the "French Language Services Act of 1990 in designated areas where sizeable francophone populations exist.

Until 1763, most of Ontario was considered part of New France by French claim. Rupert's Land, defined as the drainage basin of Hudson Bay, was claimed by Britain, and included much of today's Northern Ontario. The British defeated the armies of the French colony and its indigenous allies in the French and Indian War, part of the Seven Years' War global conflict. Concluding the war, the peace treaty between the European powers, known as the Treaty of Paris 1763, assigned almost all of France's possessions in North America to Britain, including parts that would later become Ontario not already part of Rupert's Land. Britain established the first Province of Quebec, encompassing contemporary Quebec and southern Ontario.

After the American War of Independence, the first reserves for First Nations were established. These are situated at Six Nations (1784), Tyendinaga (1793) and Akwesasne (1795). Six Nations and Tyendinaga were established by the British for those indigenous groups who had fought on the side of the British, and were expelled from the new United States. Akwesasne was a pre-existing Mohawk community and its borders were formalized under the 1795 Jay Treaty.

In 1788, while part of the Province of Quebec, southern Ontario was divided into four districts: Hesse, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, and Nassau. In 1792, the four districts were renamed: Hesse became the Western District, Lunenburg became the Eastern District, Mecklenburg became the Midland District, and Nassau became the Home District. Counties were created within the districts.

By 1798, there were eight districts: Eastern, Home, Johnstown, London, Midland, Newcastle, Niagara, and Western. By 1826, there were eleven districts: Bathurst, Eastern, Gore, Home, Johnstown, London, Midland, Newcastle, Niagara, Ottawa, and Western. By 1838, there were twenty districts: Bathurst, Brock, Colbourne, Dalhousie, Eastern, Gore, Home, Huron, Johnstown, London, Midland, Newcastle, Niagara, Ottawa, Prince Edward, Simcoe, Talbot, Victoria, Wellington, and Western.

In 1849, the districts of southern Ontario were abolished by the Province of Canada, and county governments took over certain municipal responsibilities. The Province of Canada also began creating "districts" in sparsely populated Northern Ontario with the establishment of Algoma District and Nipissing District in 1858.

The borders of Ontario, its new name in 1867, were provisionally expanded north and west. When the Province of Canada was formed, its borders were not entirely clear, and Ontario claimed eventually to reach all the way to the Rocky Mountains and Arctic Ocean. With Canada's acquisition of Rupert's Land, Ontario was interested in clearly defining its borders, especially since some of the new areas in which it was interested were rapidly growing. After the federal government asked Ontario to pay for construction in the new disputed area, the province asked for an elaboration on its limits, and its boundary was moved north to the 51st parallel north.

The northern and western boundaries of Ontario were in dispute after Canadian Confederation. Ontario's right to Northwestern Ontario was determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1884 and confirmed by the "Canada (Ontario Boundary) Act, 1889" of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. By 1899, there were seven northern districts: Algoma, Manitoulin, Muskoka, Nipissing, Parry Sound, Rainy River, and Thunder Bay. Four more northern districts were created between 1907 and 1912: Cochrane, Kenora, Sudbury and Timiskaming.

In the 2016 census, Ontario had a population of 13,448,494 living in 5,169,174 of its 5,598,391 total dwellings, a 4.6 percent change from its 2011 population of 12,851,821. With a land area of, it had a population density of in 2016.

The percentages given below add to more than 100 per cent because of dual responses (e.g., "French and Canadian" response generates an entry both in the category "French Canadian" and in the category "Canadian").

The majority of Ontarians are of English or other European descent including large Scottish, Irish and Italian communities. Slightly less than 5 per cent of the population of Ontario is Franco-Ontarian, that is those whose native tongue is French, although those with French ancestry account for 11 per cent of the population. In relation to natural increase or inter-provincial migration, immigration is a huge population growth force in Ontario, as it has been over the last two centuries. More recent sources of immigrants with large or growing communities in Ontario include South Asians, Caribbeans, Latin Americans, Europeans, Asians, and Africans. Most populations have settled in the larger urban centres.

In 2011, 25.9 per cent of the population consisted of visible minorities and 2.4 per cent of the population was Indigenous, mostly of First Nations and Métis descent. There was also a small number of Inuit people in the province. The number of Aboriginal people and visible minorities has been increasing at a faster rate than the general population of Ontario.

In 2011, the largest religious denominations in Ontario were the Roman Catholic Church (with 31.4% of the population), the United Church of Canada (7.5%), and the Anglican Church (6.1%). 23.1% of Ontarians had no religious affiliation, making it the second-largest religious grouping in the province after Roman Catholics.

The major religious groups in Ontario in 2011 were:
In Ontario, Catholics are represented by the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario and the Anglican Protestants by the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario. The Ecclesiastical Province covers most of the geographical province of Ontario

The principal language of Ontario is English, the province's de facto official language, which is spoken natively by about 70% of the province's population, according to the 2011 census. There is also a French-speaking population concentrated in the northeastern, eastern, and extreme Southern parts of the province, where under the "French Language Services Act", provincial government services are required to be available in French if at least 10% of a designated area's population report French as their native language. Roughly 4% of Ontarians speak French as their mother tongue, and 11% are bilingual, speaking both English and French, according to the 2011 census. Other languages spoken by residents include Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Malayalam, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Sinhalese, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Tibetan, Urdu and Vietnamese.

Ontario is Canada's leading manufacturing province, accounting for 52% of the total national manufacturing shipments in 2004. Ontario's largest trading partner is the American state of Michigan., Moody's bond-rating agency rated Ontario debt at AA2/stable, while S&P rated it AA-. Dominion Bond Rating Service rated it AA(low) in January 2013. Long known as a bastion of Canadian manufacturing and financial solvency, Ontario's public debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to be 37.2% in fiscal year 2019–2020, compared to 26% in 2007–2008.

Ontario's rivers make it rich in hydroelectric energy. In 2009, Ontario Power Generation generated 70 percent of the electricity of the province, of which 51 percent is nuclear, 39% is hydroelectric and 10% is fossil-fuel derived. By 2025, nuclear power is projected to supply 42%, while fossil-fuel-derived generation is projected to decrease slightly over the next 20 years. Much of the newer power generation coming online in the last few years is natural gas or combined-cycle natural gas plants. OPG is not, however, responsible for the transmission of power, which is under the control of Hydro One. Despite its diverse range of power options, problems related to increasing consumption, lack of energy efficiency and aging nuclear reactors, Ontario has been forced in recent years to purchase power from its neighbours Quebec and Michigan to supplement its power needs during peak consumption periods. Ontario's basic domestic rate in 2010 was 11.17 cents per kWH; by contrast. Quebec's was 6.81. In December 2013, the government projected a 42 percent hike by 2018, and 68 percent by 2033.
Industrial rates are projected to rise by 33% by 2018, and 55% in 2033.

An abundance of natural resources, excellent transportation links to the American heartland and the inland Great Lakes making ocean access possible via container ships, have all contributed to making manufacturing the principal industry of the province, found mainly in the Golden Horseshoe region, which is the largest industrialized area in Canada, the southern end of the region being part of the North American Rust Belt. Important products include motor vehicles, iron, steel, food, electrical appliances, machinery, chemicals, and paper.

Ontario surpassed Michigan in car production, assembling 2.696 million vehicles in 2004. Ontario has Chrysler plants in Windsor and Bramalea, two GM plants in Oshawa and one in Ingersoll, a Honda assembly plant in Alliston, Ford plants in Oakville and St. Thomas and Toyota assembly plants in Cambridge and Woodstock. However, as a result of steeply declining sales, in 2005, General Motors announced massive layoffs at production facilities across North America including two large GM plants in Oshawa and a drive train facility in St. Catharines resulting in 8,000 job losses in Ontario alone. In 2006, Ford Motor Company announced between 25,000 and 30,000 layoffs phased until 2012; Ontario was spared the worst, but job losses were announced for the St Thomas facility and the Windsor Casting plant. However, these losses will be offset by Ford's recent announcement of a hybrid vehicle facility slated to begin production in 2007 at its Oakville plant and GM's re-introduction of the Camaro which will be produced in Oshawa. On December 4, 2008 Toyota announced the grand opening of the RAV4 plant in Woodstock, and Honda also has plans to add an engine plant at its facility in Alliston. Despite these new plants coming online, Ontario has not yet fully recovered following massive layoffs caused by the global recession; its unemployment rate was 7.3% in May 2013, compared to 8.7 percent in January 2010 and approximately 6% in 2007. In September 2013, the Ontario government committed CAD$70.9 million to the Ford plant in Oakville, while the federal government committed CAD$71.1mn, to secure 2,800 jobs. The province has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the decade from 2003, and the Bank of Canada noted that "while the energy and mining industries have benefitted from these movements, the pressure on the manufacturing sector has intensified, since many firms in this sector were already dealing with growing competition from low-cost economies such as China."

Ontario's steel industry once centred on Hamilton. Hamilton harbour, which can be seen as one drives the QEW Skyway bridge, is an industrial wasteland; U.S. Steel-owned Stelco announced in the autumn of 2013 that it would close in 2014, with the loss of 875 jobs. The move flummoxed a union representative, who seemed puzzled why a plant with capacity of 2 million tons per annum would be shut while Canada imported 8 million tons of steel the year before. Algoma Steel maintains a plant in Sault Ste Marie.
Toronto, the capital of Ontario, is the centre of Canada's financial services and banking industry. Neighbouring cities are home to product distribution, IT centres, and various manufacturing industries. Canada's Federal Government is the largest single employer in the National Capital Region, which centres on the border cities of Ontario's Ottawa and Quebec's Gatineau.
The information technology sector is important, particularly in the "Silicon Valley North" section of Ottawa, as well as the Waterloo Region, where the world headquarters of Research in Motion (the developers of the BlackBerry smartphone) is located. BlackBerry once provided more than 19 percent of the local jobs and employed more than 13% of the entire local population before it supplied 9,500 layoffs in 2013. OpenText and ATS Automation Tooling Systems of Cambridge make their homes in the area too. Mike Lazaridis, one of the founders of RIM, founded in 1999 the Perimeter Institute, then in 2002 the Institute for Quantum Computing, then in 2013 Quantum Valley Investments, to plow a portion of the benefits of RIM back into research and development.

In 2014, the section of Highway 401 between Toronto and Waterloo became the world's second-largest innovation corridor after California's Silicon Valley, employing nearly 280,000 tech workers from around the world and containing over 60% of Canada's high tech industry.

Hamilton is the largest steel manufacturing city in Canada followed closely by Sault Ste. Marie, and Sarnia is the centre for petrochemical production. Construction employed more than 6.5% of the province's work force in June 2011.

Mining and the forest products industry, notably pulp and paper, are vital to the economy of Northern Ontario. There has been controversy over the Ring of Fire mineral deposit, and whether the province can afford to spend CAD$2.25 billion on a road from the Trans-Canada Highway near Kenora to the deposit, currently valued at CAD$60 billions.

Tourism contributes heavily to the economy of Central Ontario, peaking during the summer months owing to the abundance of fresh water recreation and wilderness found there in reasonable proximity to the major urban centres. At other times of the year, hunting, skiing and snowmobiling are popular. This region has some of the most vibrant fall colour displays anywhere on the continent, and tours directed at overseas visitors are organized to see them. Tourism also plays a key role in border cities with large casinos, among them Windsor, Cornwall, Sarnia and Niagara Falls, the latter of which attracts millions of US and other international visitors.

Once the dominant industry, agriculture occupies a small percentage of the population. However, much of the land in southern Ontario is given over to agriculture. As the following table shows, while the number of individual farms has steadily decreased and their overall size has shrunk at a lower rate, greater mechanization has supported increased supply to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of a growing population base; this has also meant a gradual increase in the total amount of land used for growing crops.
Common types of farms reported in the 2001 census include those for cattle, small grains and dairy. The fruit- and grape-growing industry is primarily on the Niagara Peninsula and along Lake Erie, where tobacco farms are also situated. Market vegetables grow in the rich soils of the Holland Marsh near Newmarket. The area near Windsor is also very fertile. The Heinz plant in Leamington was taken over in these autumn of 2013 by Warren Buffett and a Brazilian partner, following which it put 740 people out of work. Government subsidies followed shortly; Premier Kathleen Wynne offered CAD$200,000 to cushion the blow, and promised that another processed-food operator would soon be found. On December 10, 2013, Kellogg's announced layoffs for more than 509 workers at a cereal manufacture plant in London. Kellogg's plans to relocate jobs to Thailand.

The area defined as the Corn Belt covers much of the southwestern area of the province, extending as far north as close to Goderich, but corn and soy are grown throughout the southern portion of the province. Apple orchards are a common sight along the southern shore of Nottawasaga Bay (part of Georgian Bay) near Collingwood and along the northern shore of Lake Ontario near Cobourg. Tobacco production, centred in Norfolk County, has decreased, allowing an increase in alternative crops such as hazelnuts and ginseng. The Ontario origins of Massey Ferguson, once one of the largest farm-implement manufacturers in the world, indicate the importance agriculture once had to the Canadian economy.

Southern Ontario's limited supply of agricultural land is going out of production at an increasing rate. Urban sprawl and farmland severances contribute to the loss of thousands of acres of productive agricultural land in Ontario each year. Over 2,000 farms and of farmland in the GTA alone were lost to production in the two decades between 1976 and 1996. This loss represented approximately 18%". of Ontario's Class 1 farmland being converted to urban purposes. In addition, increasing rural severances provide ever-greater interference with agricultural production.

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009 (GEA), takes a two-pronged approach to commercializing renewable energy:The bill envisaged appointing a Renewable Energy Facilitator to provide "one-window" assistance and support to project developers to facilitate project approvals.

The approvals process for transmission projects would also be streamlined and (for the first time in Ontario) the bill would enact standards for renewable energy projects. Homeowners would have access to incentives to develop small-scale renewables such as low- or no-interest loans to finance the capital cost of renewable energy generating facilities like solar panels.

Ontario is home to Niagara Falls, which supplies a large amount of electricity to the province. The Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, the largest operational nuclear power plant in the world, is also in Ontario and uses 8 CANDU reactors to generate electricity for the province.

Ontario had the most wind energy capacity of the country with 4,900 MW of power (41% of Canada capacity).

The "British North America Act 1867" section 69 stipulated "There shall be a Legislature for Ontario consisting of the Lieutenant Governor and of One House, styled the Legislative Assembly of Ontario." The assembly currently has 124 seats (increased from 107 as of the 42nd Ontario general election) representing ridings elected in a first-past-the-post system across the province.

The legislative buildings at Queen's Park are the seat of government. Following the Westminster system, the leader of the party holding the most seats in the assembly is known as the "Premier and President of the Council" (Executive Council Act R.S.O. 1990). The Premier chooses the cabinet or Executive Council whose members are deemed ministers of the Crown.

Although the "Legislative Assembly Act (R.S.O. 1990)" refers to "members of the assembly", the legislators are now commonly called MPPs (Members of the Provincial Parliament) in English and "députés de l'Assemblée législative" in French, but they have also been called MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly), and both are acceptable. The title of Prime Minister of Ontario, correct in French ("le Premier ministre"), is permissible in English but now generally avoided in favour of the title "Premier" to avoid confusion with the Prime Minister of Canada.

Ontario has grown, from its roots in Upper Canada, into a modern jurisdiction. The old titles of the chief law officers, the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, remain in use. They both are responsible to the Legislature. The Attorney-General drafts the laws and is responsible for criminal prosecutions and the administration of justice, while the Solicitor-General is responsible for law enforcement and the police services of the province.

Ontario has numerous political parties which run for election. The four main parties are the centre-right Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, the social democratic Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP), the centrist Ontario Liberal Party and the centre-left Ontario Green Party. The Progressive Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats have each governed the province, while the Greens elected their first-ever member to the Legislative Assembly in 2018.

The 2018 provincial election resulted in a Progressive Conservative majority under Doug Ford, who was sworn in to office on June 29.

Statistics Canada's measure of a "metro area", the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), roughly bundles together population figures from the core municipality with those from "commuter" municipalities.

*Parts of Quebec (including Gatineau) are included in the Ottawa CMA. The population of the Ottawa CMA, in both provinces, is shown.

In Canada, education falls under provincial jurisdiction. Publicly funded elementary and secondary schools are administered by the Ontario Ministry of Education, while colleges and universities are administered by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. The Minister of Education is Lisa Thompson, and the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities is Merrilee Fullerton.

Higher education in Ontario includes postsecondary education and skills training regulated by the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities and provided by universities, colleges of applied arts and technology, and private career colleges. The minister is Reza Moridi. The ministry administers laws covering 22 public universities, 24 public colleges (21 Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) and three Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning (ITALs)), 17 privately funded religious universities, and over 500 private career colleges. The Canadian constitution provides each province with the responsibility for higher education and there is no corresponding national federal ministry of higher education. Within Canadian federalism the division of responsibilities and taxing powers between the Ontario and Canadian governments creates the need for co-operation to fund and deliver higher education to students. Each higher education system aims to improve participation, access, and mobility for students. There are two central organizations that assist with the process of applying to Ontario universities and colleges: the Ontario Universities' Application Centre and Ontario College Application Service. While application services are centralized, admission and selection processes vary and are the purview of each institution independently. Admission to many Ontario postsecondary institutions can be highly competitive. Upon admission, students may get involved with regional student representation with the Canadian Federation of Students, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, or through the College Student Alliance in Ontario.

In 1973 the first slogan to appear on licence plates in Ontario was "Keep It Beautiful". This was replaced by "Yours to Discover" in 1982, apparently inspired by a tourism slogan, "Discover Ontario", dating back to 1927. Plates with the French equivalent, "Tant à découvrir", were made available to the public beginning in May 2008. (From 1988 to 1990, "Ontario Incredible" gave "Yours to Discover" a brief respite.)

In 2007, a new song replaced "A Place to Stand" after four decades. "There's No Place Like This" is featured in television advertising, performed by Ontario artists including Molly Johnson, Brian Byrne, Keshia Chanté, as well as Tomi Swick and Arkells.

The province has professional sports teams in baseball, basketball, Canadian football, ice hockey, lacrosse, rugby and soccer.

Transportation routes in Ontario evolved from early waterway travel and First Nations paths followed by European explorers. Ontario has two major east-west routes, both starting from Montreal in the neighbouring province of Quebec. The northerly route, which was a major fur trade route, travels west from Montreal along the Ottawa River, then continues northwestward towards Manitoba. Major cities on or near the route include Ottawa, North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, and Thunder Bay. The southerly route, which was driven by growth in settlements originated by the United Empire Loyalists and later other European immigrants, travels southwest from Montreal along the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie before entering the United States in Michigan. Major cities on or near the route include Kingston, Belleville, Peterborough, Oshawa, Toronto, Mississauga, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, London, Sarnia, and Windsor. This route was also heavily used by immigrants to the Midwestern US particularly in the late 19th century.

400-series highways make up the primary vehicular network in the south of province, and they connect to numerous border crossings with the US, the busiest being the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel and Ambassador Bridge and the Blue Water Bridge (via Highway 402). Some of the primary highways along the southern route are Highway 401, Highway 417, and Highway 400, while other provincial highways and regional roads inter-connect the remainder of the province.

The Saint Lawrence Seaway, which extends across most of the southern portion of the province and connects to the Atlantic Ocean, is the primary water transportation route for cargo, particularly iron ore and grain. In the past, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River were also a major passenger transportation route, but over the past half century passenger travel has been reduced to ferry services and sightseeing cruises.

Via Rail operates the inter-regional passenger train service on the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, along with "The Canadian", a transcontinental rail service from Southern Ontario to Vancouver, and the Sudbury–White River train. Additionally, Amtrak rail connects Ontario with key New York cities including Buffalo, Albany, and New York City. Ontario Northland provides rail service to destinations as far north as Moosonee near James Bay, connecting them with the south.

Freight rail is dominated by the founding cross-country Canadian National Railway and CP Rail companies, which during the 1990s sold many short rail lines from their vast network to private companies operating mostly in the south.

Regional commuter rail is limited to the provincially owned GO Transit, and serves a train-bus network spanning the Golden Horseshoe region, with Union Station in Toronto serving as the transport hub.

The Toronto Transit Commission operates the province's only subway and streetcar system, one of the busiest in North America. OC Transpo operates, in addition to bus service, Ontario's only light rail transit line, the O-Train in Ottawa.

A light-rail metro called the Confederation Line is under construction in Ottawa. It will have 13 stations on and part of it will run under the city's Downtown and feature three underground stations. In addition, the Ion light rail and bus rapid transit system is under construction in the province's Waterloo region.
Important airports in the province include Toronto Pearson International Airport, which is the busiest airport in Canada, handling over 47 million passengers in 2017. Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport is Ontario's second largest airport. Toronto/Pearson and Ottawa/Macdonald-Cartier form two of the three points in Canada's busiest set of air routes (the third point being Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport).

Most Ontario cities have regional airports, many of which have scheduled commuter flights from Air Canada Jazz or smaller airlines and charter companies – flights from the mid-size cities such as Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, North Bay, Timmins, Windsor, London, and Kingston feed directly into larger airports in Toronto and Ottawa. Bearskin Airlines also runs flights along the northerly east-west route, connecting Ottawa, North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Kitchener and Thunder Bay directly.

Isolated towns and settlements in the northern areas of the province rely partly or entirely on air service for travel, goods, and even ambulance services (MEDIVAC), since much of the far northern area of the province cannot be reached by road or rail.

Ontario has no official language, but English is considered the "de facto" language. Numerous French language services are available under the French Language Services Act of 1990 in designated areas where sizable francophone populations exist.

History of Ontario

The History of Ontario covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians thousands of years ago to the present day. The lands that make up present-day Ontario, the most populous province of Canada as of the early 21st century have been inhabited for millennia by groups of Aboriginal people, with French and British exploration and colonization commencing in the 17th century. Before the arrival of Europeans, the region was inhabited both by Algonquian (Ojibwa, Cree and Algonquin) and Iroquoian (Iroquois, Petun and Huron) tribes.

French explorer Étienne Brûlé surveyed part of the area in 1610–12. The English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into Hudson Bay in 1611 and claimed the area for England, but Samuel de Champlain reached Lake Huron in 1615. French Jesuit missionaries began to establish posts along the Great Lakes, forging alliances in particular with the Huron people. Permanent French settlement was hampered by their hostilities with the Five Nations of the Iroquois (based in New York State), who became allied with the British. By the early 1650s, using both British and Dutch arms, they had succeeded in pushing other related Iroquoian-speaking peoples, the Petun and Neutral Nation, out of or to the fringes of territorial southern Ontario. In 1747 a small number of French settlers established the oldest continually inhabited European community in what became western Ontario; "Petite Côte" was settled on the south bank of the Detroit River across from Fort Detroit and near Huron and Petun villages.

The British established trading posts on Hudson Bay in the late 17th century and began a struggle for domination of Ontario. With their victory in the Seven Years' War, the 1763 Treaty of Paris awarded nearly all of France's North American possessions (New France) to Britain.

The region was annexed to Quebec in 1774. The first European settlements were in 1782–1784, when 5,000 American loyalists entered what is now Ontario following the American Revolution. From 1783 to 1796, Britain granted individuals 200 acres (0.8 km) of land per household and other items as compensation for their losses in the Thirteen Colonies and a start for rebuilding their lives. This resettlement substantially increased the European population of Canada west of the St. Lawrence-Ottawa River confluence during this period. The Constitutional Act of 1791 recognized this development, as it split Quebec into The Canadas: Lower Canada east of the St. Lawrence-Ottawa River confluence, the area of earliest settlement; and Upper Canada southwest of the confluence. John Graves Simcoe was appointed Upper Canada's first Lieutenant-Governor in 1793.

American troops in the War of 1812 invaded Upper Canada across the Niagara River and the Detroit River but were defeated and pushed back by British forces, local militia and allied Native American forces. The Americans gained control of Lake Erie at the Battle of Lake Erie. The British had to flee on foot, and the American William Henry Harrison caught up and decisively defeated them at the Battle of the Thames. The Americans also killed Tecumseh, leader of the anti-American First Nations military force, which permanently disrupted the military alliance between Britain and the Indians.

During the Battle of York, Americans occupied the Town of York (later named Toronto) in 1813. After losing their general Zebulon Pike and having a difficult time holding the town, the departing American soldiers burned it to the ground.

After the War of 1812, relative stability attracted increasing numbers of immigrants from Britain and Ireland rather than from the United States. Colonial leaders encouraged this new immigration. However, many arriving newcomers from Europe (mostly from Britain and Ireland) found frontier life difficult, and some of those with the means eventually returned home or went south. But population growth far exceeded emigration from this area in the following decades.

Canal projects and a new network of plank roads spurred greater trade within the colony and with the United States, thereby improving relations over time. Ontario's numerous waterways aided travel and transportation into the interior and supplied water power for development. Canals were capital-intensive infrastructure projects that facilitated trade. The Oswego Canal, built in New York 1825–1829, was a vital commercial link in the Great Lakes–Atlantic seaway. It was connected to Ontario's Welland Canal in 1829. The newly fashioned Oswego–Welland line offered an alternate route to the St. Lawrence River and Europe, as opposed to the Erie Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to New York City via the Mohawk and Hudson rivers.

In the absence of a hereditary aristocracy, Upper Canada was run by an oligarchy or closed group of powerful men who controlled most of the political, judicial and economic power from the 1810s to the 1830s. Opponents called it the "Family Compact", but its members avoided the term. In the religious sphere, a key leader was John Strachan (1778–1867), the Anglican bishop of Toronto. Strachan (and the Family Compact generally) was opposed by Methodist leader Egerton Ryerson (1803–1882). The Family Compact consisted of English gentry who arrived before 1800, and the sons of United Empire Loyalists, who were exiles who fled the American revolution. The term "family" was metaphorical, for they generally were not related by blood or marriage. There were no elections and the leadership controlled appointments, so local officials were generally allies of the leaders.

The Family Compact looked to Britain for the ideal model of society, where landed aristocrats held power. The Family Compact was noted for its conservatism and opposition to democracy, especially the rowdy United States version. They developed the theme that they and their militia had defeated American attempts to annex Canada in the War of 1812. They were based in Toronto, and were integrated with the bankers, merchants and financiers of the city, and were active in promoting canals and railroads.

Many men chafed against the anti-democratic Family Compact that governed through personal connections among the elite, which controlled the best lands. This resentment spurred republican ideals and sowed the seeds for early Canadian nationalism. Accordingly, rebellion in favour of responsible government rose in both regions; Louis-Joseph Papineau led the Lower Canada Rebellion and William Lyon Mackenzie led the Upper Canada Rebellion. The rebellions failed but there were long-term changes that resolved the issue.

Although both rebellions were put down in short order, the British government sent Lord Durham to investigate the causes of the unrest. He recommended that self-government be granted and that Lower and Upper Canada be re-joined in an attempt to assimilate the French Canadians. Accordingly, the two colonies were merged into the Province of Canada by the "Act of Union (1840)", with the capital at Kingston, and Upper Canada becoming known as Canada West. Parliamentary self-government was granted in 1848.

Due to waves of increased immigration in the 1840s, the population of Canada West more than doubled by 1851 over the previous decade. As a result, for the first time the English-speaking population of Canada West surpassed the French-speaking population of Canada East, tilting the representative balance of power.

An economic boom in the 1850s, brought on by factors such as a free trade agreement with the United States, coincided with massive railway expansion across the province, furthering the economic strength of Central Canada, pre-confederation.

A political stalemate between the French- and English-speaking legislators, as well as fear of aggression from the United States during the American Civil War, led the political elite to hold a series of conferences in the 1860s to effect a broader federal union of all British North American colonies. The "British North America Act" took effect on July 1, 1867, establishing the Dominion of Canada, initially with four provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. The Province of Canada was divided at this point into Ontario and Quebec so that each major European linguistic group would have its own province.

Both Quebec and Ontario were required by section 93 of the BNA Act to safeguard existing educational rights and privileges of the relative Protestant and Catholic minorities. Thus, separate Catholic schools and school boards were permitted in Ontario. However, neither province had a constitutional requirement to protect its French- or English-speaking minority. Toronto was formally established as Ontario's provincial capital at this time.
Once constituted as a province, Ontario proceeded to assert its economic and legislative power. In 1872, the Liberal Party leader Oliver Mowat became premier, and remained as premier until 1896, despite Conservative control in Ottawa. Mowat fought for provincial rights, weakening the power of the federal government in provincial matters, usually through well-argued appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. His battles with the federal government greatly decentralized Canada, giving the provinces far more power than Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had intended.

Mowat consolidated and expanded Ontario's educational and provincial institutions, created districts in Northern Ontario, and fought tenaciously to ensure that those parts of Northwestern Ontario not historically part of Upper Canada (the vast areas north and west of the Lake Superior-Hudson Bay watershed, known as the District of Keewatin) would become part of Ontario, a victory embodied in the "Canada (Ontario Boundary) Act, 1889". He also presided over the emergence of the province into the economic powerhouse of Canada. Mowat was the creator of what is often called "Empire Ontario".

The boundary between Ontario and Manitoba became a hotly contested matter, with the federal government attempting to extend Manitoba's jurisdiction eastward to the Great Lakes, into the areas claimed by Ontario. In 1882 Premier Mowat threatened to pull Ontario from Confederation over the issue. Mowat sent police into the disputed territory to assert Ontario's claims, while Manitoba (at the behest of the national government) did the same. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Britain, serving as Canada's highest appeal court, repeatedly issued rulings taking the side of provincial rights. These decisions would to some extent neutralize the power of the central government, creating a more decentralized federation.

John Ibbitson writes that by 1914:

Meanwhile, Ontario's Conservative Party leader William Ralph Meredith had difficulty balancing the province's particular interests with his national party's centralism. Meredith was further undercut by lack of support from the national Conservative party and his own elitist aversion to popular politics at the provincial level.

In the 1894 election, the main issues were the Liberals' "Ontario System", as well as opposition to French language schools and a rise in anti-Catholicism (led by the Protestant Protective Association (PPA)); farmer interests as expressed by the new Patrons of Industry; support for Toronto business, woman suffrage, and the temperance movement; and the demands of labour unions. Mowat and the Liberals maintained their large majority in the assembly.

As the population increased, so did the industries and transportation networks, which in turn led to further development. By the end of the 19th century, Ontario vied with Quebec as the nation's leader in terms of growth in population, industry, arts, and communications.

Ontario large manufacturing and finance sectors waxed profitable in the late 19th century. Lucrative new markets opened up nationwide thanks to the federal government's high-tariff National Policy after 1879, which limited competition from the United States. New markets out west opened after construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (1875–1885) through Northern Ontario to the Prairies and British Columbia. Tens of thousands of European immigrants, as well as native Canadians, moved west along the railroad in order to acquire land and set up new farms. They shipped their wheat east and bought from local merchants who placed orders with Ontario wholesalers, especially those based in Toronto.

Farming was generally quite profitable, especially after 1896. The major changes involved mechanization of technology and a shift toward high-profit, high-quality consumer products, such as milk, eggs and vegetables, for the fast-growing urban markets. It took farmers a half century to appreciate the value of high-protein soybean crops. Introduced in the 1890s, acceptance was slow until 1943–52, when farmers in the southwestern counties expanded production. Farmers increasingly demanded more information on the best farming techniques. Their demands led to farm magazine and agricultural fairs. In 1868 the assembly created an agricultural museum, which developed as the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph in 1874.

Commercial wine production in the province began in the 1860s with an aristocrat from France, Count Justin McCarthy De Courtenay in County Peel. His success followed the realization that the right grapes could grow in the cold climate, producing an inexpensive good wine that could reach a commercial market. He gained government support and raised the capital for a commercial-scale vineyard and winery. His financial success encouraged others to enter the business.

The care of illegitimate children was a high priority for private charities. Before 1893, the Ontario government appropriated grants to charitable infants' homes for the infants and for their nursing mothers. Most of these infants were illegitimate, and most of their mothers were poor. Many babies were admitted to the homes in poor physical condition, so that their chances of survival outside such homes was poor.

The changes in the next generation in the town of Woodstock in southwestern Ontario exemplified the shift of power from the Tory elite to middle-class merchants and professionals. The once-unquestioned leadership of the magistracy and the Anglican Church, with their closed interlocking networks of patron-client relations, faded year by year as modern ideas of respectability based on merit and economic development grew apace. The new middle class was solidly in control by the 1870s, and the old elite had all but vanished.

While Anglicans consolidated their hold on the upper classes, workingmen and farmers responded to the Methodist revivals, often sponsored by visiting preachers from the United States. Typical was Rev. James Caughey, an American sent by the Wesleyan Methodist Church from the 1840s through 1864. He brought in the converts by the score, most notably in the revivals in Canada West 1851–53. His technique combined restrained emotionalism with a call for personal commitment, coupled with follow-up action to organize support from converts. It was a time when the Holiness Movement caught fire, with the revitalized interest of men and women in Christian perfection. Caughey bridged the gap between the style of earlier camp meetings and the needs of more sophisticated Methodist congregations in the emerging cities.

Travelers commented on the class differentials in recreation, contrasting the gentrified masculinity of the British middle class and the rough-and-ready bush masculinity of the workers. Working-class audiences responded to cockfights, boxing matches, wrestling, and animal baiting. That was too bloody for gentlemen and army officers, who favoured games that promoted honour and built character. Middle-class sports, especially lacrosse and snowshoeing, evolved from military training. Ice hockey proved a success among both refined gentlemen and bloodthirsty labourers.

The ideals promulgated by English author and reformer Thomas Hughes, especially as expressed in "Tom Brown's Schooldays" (1857), gave the middle class a model for sports that provided moral education and training for citizenship. Late in the 19th century, the Social Gospel themes of muscular Christianity were influential, as in the invention of basketball in 1891 by James Naismith, an Ontarian employed at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School in Massachusetts. Outside of sports, the social and moral agendas behind muscular Christianity influenced numerous reform movements, thus linking it to the political left in Canada.

Numerous local rivalries had to be overcome before physicians could form a single, self-regulating, and unified medical body for licensing and educating practitioners. Professionalization began with the first medical board in 1818, and an 1827 act that required all doctors to be licensed. From the 1840s on, the number of new doctors with medical degrees increased rapidly because of legislation and the establishment of local medical schools. The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons was chartered in 1869.

As physicians became better organized, they gained passage of laws controlling the practice of medicine and pharmacy, and banning marginal and traditional practitioners. Midwifery—practised along traditional lines by women—was restricted and practically died out by 1900. Even so, the great majority of childbirths took place at home until the 1920s, when hospitals became preferred, especially by women who were better educated, wealthier and more modern, and more trusting of modern medicine.

Mineral exploitation accelerated in the late 19th century, leading to the rise of important mining centres in the northeast like Sudbury, Cobalt and Timmins.

Energy policy focused on hydro-electric power, leading to the formation in 1906 of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario (HEPC), renamed Ontario Hydro in 1974. HEPC was a unique hybrid of a government department, a crown corporation, and a municipal cooperative that coexisted with the existing private companies. It was a "politically rational" rather than a "technically efficient" solution that depended on the watershed election of 1905 when the main issue became "Niagara Power". The Conservative slogan was "water power of Niagara should be free".

The Conservatives replaced the Liberals and set up HEPC. In 1908 HEPC began purchasing electricity from Niagara Falls. In the next decade it purchased most of the privately owned distribution systems and built an integrated network. The availability of cheap electric power stimulated the development of industry. The Ford Motor Company of Canada was established in 1904. General Motors of Canada Ltd. was formed in 1918. The motor vehicle industry became by 1920 the most productive industry in Ontario and a customer for smaller suppliers.

Entrepreneurship was exemplified by the career of John Northway (1848–1926). Beginning as a tailor in a small town, he moved to Toronto and soon developed a chain of department stores. His innovations in the sewing and marketing of ladies' wear stimulated the rise of a Canadian ladies' garment industry. Northway pioneered modern business and accounting methods. He innovated as well in labour relations, as a pioneer in sickness and accident compensation and profit-sharing schemes. A millionaire by 1910, he played a leading role in Toronto's civic life.

Once they had taken control of the practice of medicine, the doctors on the Medical Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) turned their attention to the quality of medical education in the province. Marginal and untrained practitioners were banned, but the question rose of the permanence and the quality of proprietary for-profit medical schools. CPSO-imposed regulations in the 1860s to increase faculty size and raise matriculation standards. They required students to take Council-administered examinations. Toronto had two medical schools – Trinity Medical School and the Toronto School of Medicine (TSM). During the 1880s the TSM added instructors, expanded its curriculum, and focused on clinical instruction. Enrollments grew at both schools. Critics found proprietary schools lacking, especially for their failure to offer sufficient instruction in the basic sciences.

In 1887, the TSM became the medical faculty of the University of Toronto, increasing its emphasis on research within the medical curriculum. Trinity realized that its survival depended as well on close ties to basic science, and in 1904 it also merged into the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. In 1923 University of Toronto researchers J. J. R. Macleod (1876–1935) and Frederick Banting (1891–1941) won the Nobel Pr1ze in Medicine for their 1921 discovery of insulin, putting Toronto on the world map of leading science.

The construction of roads and canals depended on numerous workers, whose wages often went to liquor, gambling and women, all causes for fighting and rowdiness. Community leaders realized the traditional method of dealing with troublemakers one by one was inadequate, and they began to adopt less personal modernized procedures that followed imperial models of policing, trial, and punishment through the courts.

Toronto, Hamilton, Berlin (Kitchener), Windsor and other cities modernized and professionalized their public services in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. No service was changed more dramatically than the police. The introduction of emergency telephone call boxes linked to a central dispatcher, plus the use of bicycles, motorcycles and automobiles, shifted the patrolman's duties from passively walking the beat to fast reaction to reported incidents, as well as handling automobile traffic. After 1930 the introduction of police radios speeded response times.

Regulation 17 was a regulation of the Conservative government designed to shut down French-language schools at a time that Francophones from Quebec were moving into eastern Ontario. In July 1912, the Conservative government of Sir James P. Whitney issued Regulation 17, which severely limited the provision of French-language schooling to the province's French-speaking minority. French could only be used in the first two years of schooling, and after that students and teachers were required to use English in classrooms. Few of the teachers at the French-language schools were fluent in English, so the schools had to close. The French-Canadian population, which was growing rapidly in eastern Ontario from migration, reacted with outrage; journalist Henri Bourassa denounced the "Prussians of Ontario". With the Great War raging, Anglophones were insulted by the comparison. The restriction on French- language schools contributed to the Francophones turning away from the war effort in 1915 and refusing to enlist. But, most of Ontario's Catholics were Irish, led by Irish Bishop Fallon, who united with the Protestants in opposing French schools. The government repealed Regulation 17 in 1927.

The preservation of natural resources began with the passage of the Public Parks Act in 1883, which called for public parks in every town and city. Algonquin Provincial Park, the first provincial park, was established in 1893. The creation of the provincial Department of Planning and Development in 1944 brought conservation offices throughout the province and made for an integrated approach. The conservation authorities started to create heritage museums, but that ended in the 1970s when responsibility was shifted to the new ministry of Culture and Recreation. Repeated budget cuts in the 1980s and 1990s reduced the operation of many museums and historical sites.

The British element strongly supported the war with men, money and enthusiasm. So too did the Francophone element until it reversed position in 1915. Given Germany as one of the Axis Powers, the Canadian government was suspicious of the loyalty of residents of German descent, and anti-German sentiment escalated in the country. The City of Berlin was renamed Kitchener after Britain's top commander. Left-wing anti-war activists also came under attack. In 1917–18 Isaac Bainbridge of Toronto, the dominion secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Canada and editor of its newspaper, "Canadian Forward", was charged three times with seditious libel and once with possession of seditious material; he was imprisoned twice.

Starting in the late 1870s the Ontario Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) urged public schools to teach "scientific temperance" as a compulsory subject; it reinforced moralistic messages with the study of anatomy and hygiene. Although the WCTU was initially successful in convincing the Ontario Department of Education to adopt scientific temperance as part of the curriculum, teachers opposed the plan and refused to implement it. The WCTU reacted with an attempt to reduce alcohol sales and use in the province through government action. They started with "local option" laws, which allowed local governments to prohibit the sale of liquor. Many towns and rural areas went dry in the years before 1914, but not the larger cities.

Anti-German sentiment after 1914 and the accession of Conservative William Hearst to the premiership made prohibition a major political issue, as many residents associated beer production and drinking with Germans. The Methodists and Baptists (but not the Anglicans or Catholics) demanded the province be made dry. The government introduced prohibition of alcoholic sales in 1916 with the Ontario Temperance Act. However, drinking itself was never illegal, and residents could distill and retain their own personal supply. As major liquor producers could continue distillation and export for sale, Ontario became a centre for the illegal smuggling of liquor into the United States. The latter passed complete prohibition, effective after 1920. The "drys" won a referendum in 1919. Prohibition was ended in 1927 with the Conservative establishment of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

In the early 21st century, the government still controls the sale and consumption of liquor, wine, and beer to ensure compliance with strict community standards and to generate revenue from the alcohol retail monopoly. In April 2007, Ontario Minister of Provincial Parliament Kim Craitor suggested that local brewers should be able to sell their beer in local corner stores; however, the motion was quickly rejected by Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Premier Hearst had a number of progressive ideas planned for his next term, but his Conservatives were swept from power in 1919 by a totally new farmer's party. The United Farmers of Ontario, with 45 seats, formed a bare majority coalition with the trades union party, known as the "Ontario Independent Labour Party", with 11 seats. They selected farm leader Ernest Drury as premier, enforced prohibition, passed a mother's pension and minimum wage which Hearst had proposed, and promoted good roads in the rural areas. The farmers and unionists did not get along well. The 1923 election reflected a popular move to the right, with the Conservatives winning 50% of the vote and 75 seats of the 111 seats, making George Howard Ferguson premier.

When surveys of public health showed infant mortality rates were high in Ontario, particularly in the more rural and isolated areas, the provincial government teamed with middle-class public health reformers to take action. They launched an educational campaign to teach mothers to save and improve the lives of infants and young children, with the long-range goal of uplifting the average Canadian family.

Agriculture and industry alike suffered in the Great Depression in Canada; hardest hit were the lumbering regions, the auto plants, and the steel mills. The milk industry suffered from price wars that hurt both dairy farmers and dairies. The government set up the Ontario Milk Control Board (MCB), which raised and stabilized prices through licensing, bonding, and fixed price agreements. The MCB resolved the crisis for the industry, but consumers complained loudly about higher prices. The government favoured producers over consumers as the industry rallied behind the MCB.

Following a massive defeat in 1934 by the Liberals, the Conservatives reorganized over the next decade. Led by pragmatic leaders Cecil Frost, George Drew, Alex McKenzie, and Fred Gardiner, they minimized internal conflicts, quietly dropped laissez-faire positions, and opted in favor of state intervention to deal with the Great Depression and encourage economic growth. The revised party declared loyalty to the Empire, called for comprehensive health care and pension programs, and sought more provincial autonomy. The reforms set the stage for a long run of election wins from 1943 onward.

The post-World War II period was one of exceptional prosperity and growth. Ontario, and the Greater Toronto Area in particular, have been the destination of most immigration to Canada, largely immigrants from post-war Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. After changes in federal immigration law, since the 1970s there has been a massive influx of non-Europeans. In terms of ancestry, Ontario has changed from a largely ethnically British province, to one that is very diverse.

Ontario's Fair Employment Practices Act combatted racist and religious discrimination after the Second World War, but it did not cover gender issues. Most human rights activists did not raise the issue before the 1970s, because they were family oriented and subscribed to the deeply embedded ideology of the family wage, whereby the husband should be paid enough so the wife could be a full-time housewife. After lobbying by women, labour unions, and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the Conservative government passed the Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act in 1951. It required equal pay for women who did the same work as men. Feminists in the 1950s and 1960s were unsuccessful trying to gain passage of a law to prohibit other forms of sex discrimination, such as in hiring and promotion. The enforcement of both acts was constrained by their conciliatory framework. Provincial officials interpreted the equal pay act quite narrowly, and were significantly more diligent in tackling racist and religious employment discrimination.

The Ontario Progressive Conservative Party held power in the province from 1943 until 1985 by occupying the political centre and isolating both the Left and Right, at a time when Liberals most often controlled the national government in Ottawa.

By contrast the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which rebranded itself as the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961, was in the doldrums after the war. Its best showing was in 1948 when it elected 21 MPPs, and formed the official opposition. Purists said its decline resulted from a loss of Socialist purity and abandonment of the founding left-wing principles of the movement and party. They said democratic socialist activity in terms of activism, youth training, and volunteerism was lost in favour of authoritarian political bureaucracy. Moderates said the decline demonstrated the need for cooperation with Liberals. Political scientists said the party lacked the more coherent organizational base it needed to survive.

The NDP routinely captured 20-some percent of the vote. In its surprise win in 1990, the NDP took 38% of the vote, won 75 of the 120 seats, and formed a government under Bob Rae. He served as premier but Ontario's labour unions, the backbone of the NDP, were outraged when Rae imposed pay cuts on unionized public workers. The NDP was defeated in 1995, falling back to 21% of the vote. Rae quit the NDP in 1998, describing it as too leftist, and joined the Liberals.

The Ontario Retirement Pension Plan was passed by the Liberals and will start operations in 2017. It is intended to cover an estimated 3.5 million workers in Ontario who do not have workplace pension plans. It is designed to supplement the Canada Pension Plan, and provide up to 15 per cent of a retiree's pre-retirement income as an annual pension.

Toronto replaced Montreal as the nation's premier business centre because the nationalist movement in Quebec, particularly with the success of the Parti Québécois in 1976, systematically drove Anglophone business away. Depressed economic conditions in the Maritime Provinces have also resulted in de-population of those provinces in the 20th century, with heavy migration into Ontario.

Ontario has no official language, but English is considered the "de facto" language. Numerous French language services are available under the French Language Services Act of 1990 in designated areas where sizable francophone populations exist.

The rapid spread of automobiles after 1910 and the building of roads, especially after 1920, opened up opportunities in remote rural areas to travel to the towns and cities for shopping and services. City people moved outward to suburbs. By the 1920s it was common for city folk to have a vacation cottage in remote lake areas. A stretch of the Queen Elizabeth Way ("QEW") opened in 1939, becoming one of world's first controlled-access highways. The trend of city dwellers opening vacation cottages surged after 1945. It brought new money into remote areas, while also bringing negative environmental impacts and occasional conflict between cottagers and the permanent residents.

"Whereas the French language is a historic and honoured language in Ontario and recognized by the Constitution as an official language in Canada; and whereas in Ontario the French language is recognized as an official language in the courts and in education; and whereas the Legislative Assembly recognizes the contribution of the cultural heritage of the French speaking population and wishes to preserve it for future generations; and whereas it is desirable to guarantee the use of the French language in institutions of the Legislature and the Government of Ontario, as provided in this Act."

French Language Services Act

The French Language Services Act () (the "Act") is a law in the province of Ontario, Canada which is intended to protect the rights of Franco-Ontarians, or French-speaking people, in the province.

The "Act" does not give the French language full official language status in the province, which has no official language defined in law but is primarily an English-speaking province in practice. The "Act", however, ensures that provincial government services are offered in French in 25 designated areas across the province with significant numbers of Franco-Ontarian residents.

Historically, the Franco-Ontarian community had been ignored or treated with contempt by the government of Ontario, most notably with the adoption in 1912 of Regulation 17, which forbade the use of French as a language of school instruction in Ontario. Regulation 17 was challenged in court by the activist organization ACFÉO, and was never fully implemented before its repeal in 1927. However, it was not until 1968 that the provincial government amended the "Education Act" to officially recognize the existence of French language schools in the province.

Over the next number of years, the government began to offer a wider range of services in French. In 1970, a Coordinator of Bilingualism was appointed to oversee the development of French language government services. Over the next 16 years, a large number of service policies were adopted on a piecemeal basis by individual ministries, until the French Language Services Act was introduced in 1986.

The primary purpose of the "Act" was to consolidate and formalize government policies and regulations around the provision of French language services. The "Act" guaranteed francophones in 23 designated areas of the province a right to local French services from the provincial government. Two more cities were designated as French language service areas after the Act came into effect.

Francophones living outside of the designated areas can receive services in French by accessing government services located in the designated areas or by directly contacting the head offices of government ministries. The provision and coordination of French language services is managed by the Ministry of Francophone Affairs.

The "French Language Services Act" does not cover public agencies such as hospitals, nursing homes or the Children's Aid Society. However, these agencies may ask to be officially designated as providers of services in French by the Cabinet. Once designated, the agencies must provide French-language services just as the ministries do. Other partially funded provincial and municipal agencies may develop their own policies regarding French language services. For instance, Ontario public libraries within FLSA designated areas are not bound by the "Act", however the "Ontario Libraries Act"s section 20 (b) states that public library boards "shall seek to provide library services in the French language, where appropriate".

The "Act" also does not legislate any responsibilities upon individual municipalities to provide French language services, although a municipality may choose to do so of its own accord.

The "Act" was introduced in 1986 by Bernard Grandmaître, Minister of Francophone Affairs in the Liberal government of David Peterson, and passed successfully. It provided for a three-year implementation period, and the law officially came into effect on November 18, 1989.

As of 2007, the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner is the agency whose primary mandate is to ensure compliance with the "French Language Services Act" in the delivery of government services by means of independent investigations. The Commissioner receives and handles complaints from the public with respect to inadequate French-language services from the Ontario government. Recommendations are outlined in a publicly available annual report to the Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs.

In order for an area to obtain designation, Francophones must make up at least 10% of its population, and urban centres must have at least 5,000 francophones. Previous to 2009, the definition of a francophone in Ontario included only native French speakers. This definition was broadened by the Government of Ontario in June 2009 "to better reflect the changing face and diversity of Ontario's Francophone communities." The new Inclusive Definition of Francophones (IDF) now includes allophones, "those whose mother tongue is neither French nor English but 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."
Brampton was designated as the province's 24th bilingual service centre in 2004, and the designation officially came into effect in March 2007. Kingston was designated as the 25th bilingual service centre in May 2006, and French services officially came into effect in 2009.

The Hawkesbury detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police became the first in Ontario to be fully operational in English and French in December 2012.

The Act was controversial with anti-bilingualism advocates such as the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada, who alleged that it created a special entitlement for francophones at the expense of anglophone residents of the province as the requirement to provide bilingual services was perceived to discriminate against government employees who did not speak French.

APEC also misrepresented or misunderstood the reality that the legislation did "not" cover municipal government services, and it began a campaign of persuading Ontario municipalities to declare themselves English-only. A number of smaller municipalities, especially in the Western Ontario region, did so during the implementation period. On January 29, 1990, the most famous such resolution was passed in Sault Ste. Marie, igniting a national controversy which in turn became a flashpoint in the Meech Lake Accord debate. (See Sault Ste. Marie language resolution.)

On November 18, 1996, New Democrat MPP Gilles Bisson spoke in French in the Legislative Assembly to mark the 10th anniversary of the Act's passage. He was heckled by Progressive Conservative opponent Joe Spina, who yelled at Bisson to "Speak English!"

On January 29, 1990, Sault Ste. Marie became a flashpoint in the Meech Lake Accord constitutional debate when council passed a resolution declaring English as the city's official language and the sole language for provision of municipal services. The city had a sizable French-speaking population and these residents objected strongly to the council's action. The Sault Ste. Marie language resolution was not the first of its kind in Ontario, but the municipality was the largest to have passed such a resolution and the first to do so despite its sizable Franco-Ontarian population.

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Sault Ste. Marie ( "Soo Saint Marie") is a city on the St. Marys River in Ontario, Canada, close to the U.S.-Canada border. It is the seat of the Algoma District and the third largest city in Northern Ontario, after Sudbury and Thunder Bay.

To the south, across the river, is the United States and the city of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. These two communities were one city until a new treaty after the War of 1812 established the border between Canada and the United States in this area at the St. Mary's River. In the 21st century, the two cities are joined by the International Bridge, which connects Interstate 75 on the Michigan side, and Huron Street (and former Ontario Secondary Highway 550B) on the Ontario side. Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses the Saint Mary's Rapids via the American Soo Locks, the world's busiest canal in terms of tonnage that passes through it, while smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie Canal.

French colonists referred to the rapids on the river as "Les Saults de Ste. Marie" and the village name was derived from that. The rapids and cascades of the St. Mary's River descend more than from the level of Lake Superior to the level of the lower lakes. Hundreds of years ago, this slowed shipping traffic, requiring an overland portage of boats and cargo from one lake to the other. The entire name translates to "Saint Mary's Rapids" or "Saint Mary's Falls". The word "sault" is pronounced in French, and in the English pronunciation of the city name. Residents of the city are called "Saultites".

Sault Ste. Marie is bordered to the east by the Rankin and Garden River First Nation reserves, and to the west by Prince Township. To the north, the city is bordered by an unincorporated portion of Algoma District, which includes the local services boards of Aweres, Batchawana Bay, Goulais and District, Peace Tree and Searchmont. The city's census agglomeration, including the townships of Laird, Prince and Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional and the First Nations reserves of Garden River and Rankin, had a total population of 79,800 in 2011.

Native American settlements, mostly of Ojibwe-speaking peoples, existed here for more than 500 years. In the late 17th century, French Jesuit missionaries established a mission at the First Nations village. This was followed by development of a fur trading post and larger settlement, as traders, trappers and Native Americans were attracted to the community. It was considered one community and part of Canada until after the War of 1812 and settlement of the border between Canada and the US at the Ste. Mary's River. The US prohibited British traders from operating in its territory, and the areas separated by the river began to develop as two communities, both named Sault Ste. Marie.

The historic Ojibwe, an Anishinaabe language people, originally called this area "Baawitigong", meaning "place of the rapids." They used this as a regional meeting place during whitefish season in the St. Mary's Rapids. (The anglicized form of this name, Bawating, is used in institutional and geographic names in the area.)

After the visit of Étienne Brûlé in 1623, the French called it "Sault de Gaston" in honour of Gaston, Duke of Orléans, the brother of King Louis XIII of France. In 1668, French Jesuit missionaries renamed it as Sault Sainte Marie, and established a mission settlement (present-day Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan) on the river's south bank.

Later, a fur trading post was established and the settlement expanded to include both sides of the river. Sault Ste. Marie is one of the oldest French settlements in North America. It was at the crossroads of the 3,000-mile fur trade route, which stretched from Montreal to Sault Ste. Marie and to the North country above Lake Superior. A cosmopolitan, mixed population of Europeans, First Nations peoples, and Métis lived at the village spanning the river.

The city name originates from "Saults de Sainte-Marie", archaic French for "Saint Mary's Falls", a reference to the rapids of Saint Marys River. Etymologically, the word "sault" comes from an archaic spelling of "saut" (from "sauter"), which translates most accurately in this usage to the English word "cataract". This in turn derives from the French word for "leap" or "jump" (similar to "somersault"). Citations dating back to 1600 use the "sault" spelling to mean a cataract, waterfall or rapids. In modern French, however, the words "chutes" or "rapides" are more usual. "Sault" survives almost exclusively in geographic names dating from the 17th century. (See also Long Sault, Ontario, Sault St. Louis, Quebec, and Grand Falls/Grand-Sault, New Brunswick, three other place names where "sault" also carries this meaning.)

Traders regularly interacted with tribes from around the Great Lakes, but the fluid environment changed during and after the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States. Trade dropped during the war and on July 20, 1814 an American force destroyed the North West Company depot on the north shore of the St. Marys River. Since the Americans were unable to capture Fort Mackinac, the British forces retained control of Sault Ste. Marie.

In 1870, the United States refused to give the steamer "Chicona", carrying Colonel Garnet Wolseley, permission to pass through the locks at Sault Ste Marie. In order to control their own water passage, the Canadians constructed the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, which was completed in 1895.

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario was incorporated as a town in 1887 and a city in 1912. The town gained brief international notoriety in 1911 in the trial of Angelina Napolitano, the first person in Canada to use the battered woman defence for murder.

During World War II, and particularly after the US was attacked at Pearl Harbor in 1941, government concern turned to protection of the locks and shipping channel at Sault Ste. Marie. A substantial military presence was established to protect the locks from a possible attack by Nazi German aircraft from the north. The recent development of long-range bombers increased fears of a sudden air raid. Military strategists studied polar projection maps which indicated that the air distance from occupied Norway to the town was about the same as the distance from Norway to New York. That direct route of about is over terrain where there were few observers and long winter nights.

A joint Canadian and US committee called the "Permanent Joint Board on Defence" drove the installation of anti-aircraft defence and associated units of the United States Army Air Forces and Royal Canadian Air Force to defend the locks. An anti-aircraft training facility was established north of Sault Ste. Marie on the shores of Lake Superior. Barrage balloons were installed, and early warning radar bases were established at five locations in northern Ontario (Kapuskasing, Cochrane, Hearst, Armstrong (Thunder Bay District), and Nakina) to watch for incoming aircraft. Military personnel were established to guard sensitive parts of the transportation infrastructure. A little over one year later, in January 1943, most of these facilities and defences were deemed excessive and removed, save a reduced military base at Sault Ste. Marie.

The first "Algerine"-class minesweeper in the Royal Canadian Navy was named HMCS "Sault Ste. Marie" (J334) after the city. It was laid down in 1942 and acted as a convoy in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Sault Ste. Marie has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfb") with cold, snowy winters and warm summers that are moderated to some extent by Lake Superior. Winters are cold but are milder than some inland places. Temperatures drop below 24 days per year. Summers are warm with a July high of and temperatures above occur 4 days per year. The average annual precipitation is, which is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year; February is the driest month, and the autumn months of September to November are the wettest months. The highest temperature ever recorded in Sault Ste. Marie was on 3 July 1921, while the record low was on 26 January 1927.

The city developed considerable industry before and after World War II, especially in steel-making. Algoma (formerly Algoma Steel; Essar Steel Algoma) is the largest single employer, with 3500 employees at the main plant and approximately 553 (440 unionized and 113 non-unionized) at an adjacent tube mill operated by Tenaris. During the 1940s, the steel and chromium operations were of substantial importance to the war effort in Canada and the United States. Algoma Steel and the Chromium Mining and Smelting Corporation were key producers for transportation and military machines. The Huron Central Railway has been important to the operation of the steel operation, but Genesee and Wyoming, Inc., owner of the railway, has announced its intention to discontinue operations. It continued to operate under an agreement which terminated on August 15, 2010.

Sault Ste. Marie prospered during the 1960s and '70s, but as imported steel began to compete with domestic production, the local industry began to contract. Since the late 1980s, Algoma has declared bankruptcy twice and laid off large numbers of workers. Algoma was bailed out by the Ontario government with interest-free loans. The company had a swift turnaround in 2004 from its earlier financial troubles of the 1990s. China's increased demand for steel of the past decade has increased the price of steel. Denis Turcotte, CEO, was named "Canadian CEO of the year" in 2006 for his efforts. An offer to purchase ASI by the Essar Group (India) had been recommended by the ASI Board of Directors and was approved. The company was officially sold to the Essar Group in June 2007 for $1.6 billion. Algoma is the most profitable steel company per unit on a global scale.

Forestry is also a major local industry. St. Mary's Paper has been closed and decommissioned, although it was reopened in June 2007 and operated for a time under new ownership. Also related to wood products is Flakeboard Ltd., which employs over 110 people in the community. An adjacent melamine factory manufactures products with Flakeboard's materials. Examples are furniture and cupboards where a finish is added to the product. Together both of Flakeboard's factories employ about 150 people. The Huron Central Railway is important to these local industries as well.

The business process outsourcing industry, with two call centres, Agero and Sutherland Global Services located within city limits, employ about 1500 people. The largest employer of the three call centres is Sutherland Global Services. Nucomm previously had a call centre here as well. The call centre industry has become a large employer in Sault Ste. Marie, which contributed to the economic turn around of the city in the late 1990s.

Another large employer in the community is the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG). The OLG has a corporate office located on the waterfront. It employs a total of about 900 people in Sault Ste. Marie between the corporate office and OLG Casino Sault Ste. Marie. The prize centre used to be administered in the city but was moved back to Toronto (York Mills) in 2009. The OLG is still the fourth largest employer, after Algoma Steel, Sault Area Hospital, and the call centre industry.

Sault Ste. Marie is one of only a few cities in Ontario where a municipal bylaw prevents stores from opening on December 26, a Commonwealth holiday known as Boxing Day, and the day after Christmas. Retail stores in Sault Ste. Marie begin their post-Christmas Boxing Day sales on December 27. A municipal referendum to determine whether voters favour allowing stores to open on Boxing Day was held concurrently with the 2010 municipal election. Voter turnout was not high enough to make the referendum legally binding, but 60.77 per cent of voters opposed allowing stores to open on the holiday.

The city is home to the Sault Ste. Marie Solar Park (68 MW) and, along with the co-generation plant (Brookfield Power), the F. H. Clergue Hydroelectic Generating Station, the nearby Prince Township Wind Farm (189 MW) and several nearby hydroelectric dams, form part of the city's push to be labelled the 'Alternative Energy Capital of North America'. Two other wind farms are proposed for the area: the Goulais wind farm (25 MW) and the Bow Lake wind farm (58 MW), in partnership with the Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways to be built near Montreal River Harbour. Elementa Group has built a pilot waste-to-energy plant in Sault Ste. Marie, and the local Public Utilities Commission collects methane gas from the city's landfill.

Sault Ste. Marie is served by Highway 17, which is a segment of the Trans-Canada Highway in the region. The highway connects the city to Thunder Bay to the northwest and Sudbury to the east. The International Bridge connects downtown Sault Ste. Marie to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, becoming Interstate 75 on the American side. Interstate 75 continues south to Saginaw, Flint, and Detroit before crossing into Ohio, eventually terminating in Hialeah, Florida, near Miami.

The International Bridge also directs traffic from the American side of the border via Sault Ste. Marie's new transport route that runs from the bridge to Second Line. This new limited-access roadway, known as "Carmen's Way" after the late MP Carmen Provenzano, will make it much easier for transport trucks to reach main roads. The route of Carmen's Way has a wide grassy right-of-way on both sides of the roadway, to facilitate future expansion of its lane capacity. Planning is underway to eventually connect Second Line East to the new four-lane section of Highway 17 that recently opened east of the city.

The city plays an inherited role in marine transportation, with the locks in Michigan being an integral component of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The city operates its own small-scale lock which is used by small boats and other pleasure craft in the summer. Also recently opened is a multi-modal terminal designed to take advantage of the Sault as a rail, road, and water transportation hub.

Sault Ste. Marie is also served by Sault Ste. Marie Airport and Sault Transit Services. The city is no longer connected by passenger rail to any other major cities, but is part of the Algoma Central Railway network, which runs north from the city to the small town of Hearst. In 2006 the city's Member of Parliament, Tony Martin, called for passenger rail service to be reinstated between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury.

Area tourist attractions include the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre, the Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site, boat tours of the Sault locks (which connect Lake Superior with the lower Great Lakes), Whitefish Island, the Ermatinger-Clergue National Historic Site, Casino Sault Ste. Marie, the Art Gallery of Algoma and the Algoma Central Railway's popular Agawa Canyon Tour Train.

The MS "Norgoma", a Canadian passenger ship, is a museum ship in the Great Lakes at Sault Ste. Marie.

Nearby parks include Pancake Bay Provincial Park, Batchawana Bay Provincial Park and Lake Superior Provincial Park. Winter activities are also an asset to Sault Ste Marie's tourism industry with the annual Bon Soo Winter Carnival, Searchmont Resort as a great ski and snowboard destination, Stokely Creek Lodge (cross country ski resort) and Hiawatha a nearby cross country ski trails. The city also hosts a large snowmobile trail system that criss-crosses the province of Ontario.

A new non-motorized HUB trail is being created around the city () so that walkers, rollerbladers and cyclists (snowshoeing and cross country skiing in winter) can enjoy the beautiful and convenient circle tour around town. The Voyageur Hiking Trail, a long-distance trail that will eventually span from Sudbury to Thunder Bay, originated in Sault Ste. Marie in 1973. The Roberta Bondar Pavilion was created to commemorate the first Canadian female astronaut to go into space.

The city is also home to the Station Mall, one of the largest shopping malls in Northern Ontario.

Similar to many other Northern Ontario municipalities, Sault Ste. Marie's population has declined in the 1990s and early 2000s, with many individuals migrating to larger cities in southern Ontario. Since the early 1990s, the city had dropped from 84,000 to 74,566 residents, but in the 2006 census the city's population grew very slightly to 74,948. The city's census agglomeration, consisting of the townships of Laird, Prince and Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional and the First Nations reserves of Garden River and Rankin, had a total population of 80,098, up from 78,908 in 2001.

Sault Ste. Marie was at one time a haven for Italian immigrants. The city has a large concentration of ethnic Italians for a community its size. The city also has a significant First Nations population, with three reserves nearby.

Those who are of European origin constitute 91.6% of the population, including those who are of Italian, French, English and Nordic descent. Aboriginals or Native Canadians, constitute 7.8%, and those who are of Chinese, Asian, African, and Filipino ancestry make up the last 0.6% of the population.

Christianity is the chief faith in the city, with Roman Catholicism being the largest denomination. This can be attributed to the large number of citizens with a traditional French and Italian Catholic heritage. After Catholicism and Protestantism, those who identify as being non-religious make up almost one-quarter of residents.

The Corporation of the City of Sault Ste. Marie is run by a city council of 10 councillors (representing five wards) and a mayor. The most recent municipal election was held on October 22, 2018, and the mayoralty was won by incumbent Christian Provenzano, who garnered 70.15% of the vote.

Provenzano's predecessor, Debbie Amaroso, was the first woman elected to this office.

The city's crest contains the words "Ojibwa Kitche Gumeeng Odena" (from "Ojibwe gichi-gamiing oodena") which means "Town by the large body of water of the Ojibwe" (or simply "Town by Lake Superior") in the Ojibwe language.

The city is served by the Sault Ste. Marie federal electoral district and the Sault Ste. Marie provincial electoral district. The boundaries of these two districts are not identical; the provincial district encompasses the city alone, while the federal district includes the neighbouring Garden River and Rankin reserves, and extends northerly to the Montreal River. The city's current federal Member of Parliament is Terry Sheehan (Liberal), and its seat in the provincial legislature is Ross Romano (Conservative).

See also Neighbourhoods in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

The city is home to Sault College, a college of applied arts and technology, and to Algoma University. While the vast majority of programs at Algoma University and Sault College are delivered on the respective campuses, both institutions also offer joint programs with Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. On June 18, 2008, Algoma University became an independent university, ending its longtime affiliation with Laurentian University in Sudbury. A new school, "Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig" (University), is poised to launch as a federated school of Algoma University. It will offer courses in Anishinaabe culture and language.

Sault Ste. Marie is home to the Algoma District School Board and to the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board. It is part of the Conseil scolaire de district du Grand Nord de l'Ontario and the Conseil scolaire de district catholique du Nouvel-Ontario. It is also home to the following high schools:Sault Ste. Marie is also home to the Ontario Forest Research Institute and the federal Great Lakes Forestry Centre.

Sault Ste. Marie has over 30 elementary schools.

The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds are the city's most recognized sports team having existed since the formation of the Northern Ontario Hockey Association in 1919. The Hounds won national championships twice including the 1993 Memorial Cup and the 1924 Allan Cup. The Greyhounds play in the GFL Memorial Gardens, a state-of-the-art downtown arena that replaced the Sault Memorial Gardens in 2006. The current Hounds have retired five jerseys since joining the Ontario Hockey League in 1972: #1 John Vanbiesbrouck, #4 Craig Hartsburg, #10 Ron Francis, #5 Adam Foote, and #99 Wayne Gretzky.

Sault Ste. Marie also had a team in hockey's first professional league. The Sault Ste. Marie Marlboros or 'Canadian Soo' team played in the International Professional Hockey League from 1904 to 1907.

Sault Ste. Marie hockey teams have boasted a number of Hockey Hall of Fame members, including Sault natives or residents Phil Esposito, Tony Esposito, Ron Francis, and Didier Pitre, as well as Sault team members Gerry Cheevers, Paul Coffey, Bill Cook, Bun Cook, Wayne Gretzky, Newsy Lalonde, George McNamara, and Marty Walsh.

National Hockey League All-Stars Joe Thornton & Jeff Carter played their entire OHL careers as members of the Greyhounds. Current NHL players from the Sault Ste. Marie area include New Jersey Devils centre Tyler Kennedy, Buffalo Sabres centre Jordan Nolan, St.Louis Blues centre Chris Thorburn and Vegas Golden Knights defense Colin Miller

Sault Ste. Marie native Paul Maurice is the current coach of the NHL's Winnipeg Jets, and has been a head coach for parts of 16 seasons with the Hartford/Carolina franchise, Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Jets, becoming the league's youngest ever coach at the age of 28 in 1995, and taking Carolina to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2002. Notably, former Greyhound player and coach Ted Nolan coached parts of 5 seasons in the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres & the New York Islanders, winning the Jack Adams Trophy as the NHL Coach of the Year in 1998 with the Sabres.

Sault Ste. Marie was the host of the 1990 Brier, the Canadian men's curling championship. In 2010, it hosted the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, which serves as Canada's women's curling championship. At the 2013 Tim Hortons Brier held in Edmonton, Alberta, Brad Jacobs and his team from the Soo Curlers Association won the Tim Hortons Brier, and the honour of representing Canada in the 2013 Ford World Men's Curling Championship, where they won silver. The team later won the 2013 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, earning them the right to represent Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics, where they won gold. The local curling clubs are the Soo Curlers Association and the Tarentorus Curling Club.

Sault Ste. Marie also has a rich history in American Football. For nearly 4 decades Sault Ste. Marie high-schools have consistently won Northern Ontario honors (NOSSA), and are regular participants in provincial finals. Sault Ste. Marie has also had men's semi-pro football since 1972. The Sault Steelers are 4x National Semi-Pro champions in the Canadian Major Football League, winning the honors in 1972, 2007, 2009, and 2010. The Steelers failed to field a team in the early 1990s before returning for 4 seasons as the Sault Storm, later going back to their original name in the 2000s on their way to forming a Dynasty between 2007-2010. Notable names associated with the team are Len Monico (builder and coach), Don McBain (owner/president), Barry Rushon (championship coach), and Brandon Lewis (League MVP and 20x All-Star).

Other notable athletes from Sault Ste. Marie include Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductee Rocky Dipietro, Paralympic swimmer Jessica Tuomela, softball pitcher Darren Zack, and mixed martial artist Antonio Carvalho.

The Sault has been host to many national and international sporting events including the 2003 Eco-Challenge North American Championship, an expedition-length () adventure race through unmarked wilderness by biking, trekking, paddling and using ropes.

The Walk of Fame was created in 2006 as a joint project between the city of Sault Ste. Marie and its Downtown Association, and honours those from the city or the Algoma District who have made outstanding contributions to the community or significant contributions in their chosen field of work. Inductees are added on an annual basis.

Sault Ste. Marie is home to the Bon Soo winter carnival, held every February. The city also hosts the annual Algoma Fall Festival which draws local and international performing artists. The Kiwanis Community Theatre and the landmark Central United Church are used for the performances. Both venues hold approximately 1,000 people. The Art Gallery of Algoma features an extensive collection of local and international artists' work and presents regular exhibitions. Residents celebrate Community Day on the third weekend of July. The local Rotary International club organizes a three-day event called Rotaryfest.

Sault Ste. Marie was the focus of Kalle Mattson's "A Love Song to the City", whose music video premiered on USA Today.