Francophone rights were furthered in the 1970s as a result of C'est l'temps, a Franco-Ontarian civil disobedience movement that pressured several provincial departments to adopt bilingual policies.

Former Prime Minister Paul Martin was born in Windsor to a Franco-Ontarian father from Pembroke and an anglophone mother, although many Canadians consider him a Quebecer as he represented a Montreal riding in Parliament.

[1] More than 68 per cent of francophones that live in Eastern Ontario reside in its Champlain region, an area that encompasses Cornwall, Hawkesbury, Ottawa and Pembroke (all of which are adjacent to or near the Ontario-Quebec border).

In an attempt to protect Franco-Ontarian language rights, the Association canadienne-française d'Éducation de l'Ontario (ACFÉO) was formed in 1910, who typically opposed the English-only initiatives launched by the Orange Order of Canada, and Irish Catholics led by Michael Fallon, the Bishop of London, Ontario.

[9] Due to the lack of funding, several generations of Franco-Ontarians grew up without formal education, with the dropout rate for francophones high during this period.

Further, those that did have higher levels of education often pursue job opportunities in larger cities, particularly Ottawa or even Montreal, which can create a barrier to economic development in their home communities.

[14] Following the advice of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Ontario's premier John Robarts made French an official language of the provincial legislature in 1970.

[14] His successor, Bill Davis instead opted to simply provide legal services in French, with the issuance of bilingual drivers licenses and government documents.

[14] Members of C'est l'temps refused to pay tickets issued in only in English, pressuring the provincial judiciary to act in a bilingual manner.

[14] However, the Act itself did not make the province bilingual, instead designating a number of communities where French-speakers constitute a majority or significant minority, as an area where provincial services are required to be provided in French and English.

Marie, which was persuaded by the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada to declare themselves "English-only" in the wake of the French Language Services Act and the Meech Lake Accord debate.

On October 19, 2004, a Toronto lawyer successfully challenged a "no left turn" traffic ticket on the basis that the sign was not bilingual in accordance with the 1986 French Language Services Act.

[18] The situation created a legal vacuum for several years, during which numerous defendants used the bilingual signage argument to fight traffic tickets.

[20] Clarence-Rockland is 60 per cent francophone, and the city council noted that the bylaw was intended to address the existence of both English-only and French-only commercial signage in the municipality.

[21] In 2009, the government faced controversy during the H1N1 flu pandemic, when it sent out a health information flyer in English only, with no French version published or distributed for the province's francophone residents.

[22] In response, MPP France Gélinas introduced a private member's bill in May 2011 to have the provincial Commissioner of French Language Services report to the full Legislative Assembly of Ontario rather than exclusively to the Minister of Francophone Affairs.

[31] The province's first publicly-funded university that operates solely as a French-language institution was incorporated in April 2018 as the Université de l'Ontario français, expecting to accept its first cohort of full-time students in 2021.

[33] On September 25, 2020, the government under Doug Ford, through Minister of Francophone Affairs, Caroline Mulroney, announced that Franco-Ontarians will be able to request a free replacement driver's licence or Ontario photo card displaying their name using French-language characters.

The provincial judicial system is officially bilingual in English and French, with access to a French-speaking justice viewed as a quasi-constitutional right in Ontario.

Francophones in some parts of the province have noted some difficulty in actually accessing French language services, especially in civil litigation matters; for example, francophones in the justice system have sometimes faced unnecessary and expensive delays in their judicial proceedings, or been forced to proceed in English even if they were merely functional but not fluent in the language, due to gaps in the system's ability to actually provide full French services.

While English loanwords occur to a large extent in many varieties of French in Canada and Europe, there has been more of a conscious effort in Quebec to eliminate anglicisms.

[12][13] The actual depth of this "rupture" has been questioned by academics, as Quebec continues to exert strong cultural influence on francophone minority communities in the rest of Canada.

The flag was created in 1975 by Gaétan Gervais, history professor and Michel Dupuis, first year political science student, both from Laurentian University.

[47] In 2010, the Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs Madeleine Meilleur introduced Bill 24 to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to have Franco-Ontarian Day officially recognised by the province.

[52] The stainless steel columns were designed to commemorate Franco-Ontarian contributions in the province's forestry industry, while the surrounding public square was intended to be used as a gathering space.

Ontario has seven francophone publishing companies, including Sudbury's Prise de parole, Ottawa's Editions Le Nordir and Les Éditions David.

Notable Franco-Ontarian writers, essayists and poets, include Lola Lemire Tostevin, Daniel Poliquin, Robert Dickson, Jean-Marc Dalpé, François Paré, Gaston Tremblay, Michel Bock, Doric Germain, Fernand Dorais, Hédi Bouraoui, Philippe Bernier Arcand, Andrée Christensen, Patrice Desbiens and Jean Éthier-Blais.

Important historical publications include Ottawa's Le Progrès, which was launched in 1858 as the province's first francophone newspaper,[58] and Sudbury's L'Ami du peuple, which was published from 1942 to 1968.

Ici Musique, Radio-Canada's arts and culture network, currently broadcasts only in Ottawa (CBOX), Toronto (CJBC-FM), Sudbury (CBBX), Kitchener-Waterloo (CJBC-FM-1) and Windsor (CJBC-FM-2), with an additional transmitter licensed but not yet launched in Timmins.

The provincial government operates TFO, a sister channel to TVOntario, which is available provincewide via mandatory carriage on basic cable or satellite packages and via online streaming; it formerly also transmitted over the air in selected communities with significant francophone populations, but this was discontinued in 2012.