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Ontario

Ontario (/ɒnˈtɛəri/ (listen) on-TAIR-ee-oh; French: [ɔ̃taʁjo]) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.[9][10] Located in Central Canada, it is Canada's most populous province, with 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province by total area (after Quebec).[11][12] Ontario is Canada's fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included.[3] It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto,[13] which is Ontario's provincial capital.

Ontario
Motto(s): 
Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Latin)
("Loyal she began, loyal she remains")
Coordinates: 49°15′N 84°30′W / 49.250°N 84.500°W / 49.250; -84.500[1]Coordinates: 49°15′N 84°30′W / 49.250°N 84.500°W / 49.250; -84.500[1]
CountryCanada
ConfederationJuly 1, 1867 (1st, with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec)
Capital
(and largest city)
Toronto
Largest metroGreater Toronto Area
Government
 • TypeParliamentary constitutional monarchy
 • Lieutenant GovernorElizabeth Dowdeswell
 • PremierDoug Ford
LegislatureLegislative Assembly of Ontario
Federal representationParliament of Canada
House seats121 of 338 (35.8%)
Senate seats24 of 105 (22.9%)
Area
 • Total1,076,395 km2 (415,598 sq mi)
 • Land892,411 km2 (344,562 sq mi)
 • Water158,654 km2 (61,257 sq mi)  14.7%
 • Rank4th
 10.8% of Canada
Population
 (2021)
 • Total14,223,942 [2]
 • Estimate 
(Q4 2022)
15,262,660 [4]
 • Rank1st
 • Density15.94/km2 (41.3/sq mi)
DemonymOntarian[5]
Official languagesEnglish[6]
GDP
 • Rank1st
 • Total (2015)CA$763.276 billion[7]
 • Per capitaCA$59,879 (7th)
HDI
 • HDI (2019)0.937[8]Very high (3rd)
Time zones
East of 90th meridian westUTC– 05:00 (EST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC– 04:00 (EDT)
West of 90th meridian west, except Atikokan and Pickle LakeUTC– 06:00 (CST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC– 05:00 (CDT)
Atikokan and Pickle Lake (No DST)UTC– 05:00 (EST)
Canadian postal abbr.
ON
Postal code prefix
K L M N P
ISO 3166 codeCA-ON
FlowerWhite trillium
TreeEastern white pine
BirdCommon loon
Rankings include all provinces and territories

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 2,700 km (1,678 mi) border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the westerly Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. There is only about 1 km (0.6 mi) of actual land border, made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.[14]

The great majority of Ontario's population and arable land is in Southern Ontario. In contrast, Northern Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation.[15]

Etymology

Ontario is a term thought to be derived from Indigenous origins, either Ontarí:io, a Huron (Wyandot) word meaning "great lake",[16] or possibly skanadario, which means "beautiful water" or "sparkling water" in the Iroquoian languages.[17] Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes.[18] The first mention of the name Ontario was in 1641, when "Ontario" was used to describe the land on the north shore of the easternmost part of the Great Lakes.[19] It was adopted as the official name of the new province at Confederation in 1867.[19]

Geography

The thinly populated Canadian Shield, which dominates the northwestern and central portions of the province and comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area mostly does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals, partly covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, and studded with lakes and rivers. Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions: Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario.

The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the extreme north and northeast, mainly swampy and sparsely forested.

Southern Ontario, which is further sub-divided into four sub-regions: Central Ontario (although not actually the province's geographic centre), Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe and Southwestern Ontario (parts of which were formerly referred to as Western Ontario).

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 693 metres (2,274 ft) above sea level in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m (1,640 ft) 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 covers approximately 87% of the province's surface area; conversely Southern Ontario contains 94% 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.

Climate

 

Ontario's climate varies by season and location.[20] Three air sources affect it: 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.[21] 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.[21] In general, most of Ontario's climate is classified as humid continental.[21]

Ontario has four main climatic regions:

  • The surrounding Great Lakes greatly influence the climatic region of southern Ontario.[20] During the fall and winter, the release of heat stored by the lakes moderates the climate near the shores.[22] This gives parts of southern Ontario milder winters than mid-continental areas at lower latitudes.[22] Parts of Southwestern Ontario (generally south of a line from Sarnia–Toronto) have a moderate humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfa), similar to 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 750–1,000 mm (30–39 in) 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.[23]
  • 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.[21]
  • The smallest climatic region is located at the most northeastern part of the Niagara Peninsula, which has a temperate humid climate (Köppen Cfa), due to moderating effects by Lake Ontario, the Niagara River and battling air masses from the Gulf of Mexico during the winter months.[24] It is one of the most temperate regions in the entire province.

In the northeastern parts of Ontario, extending south as far 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.[21] 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 to upwards of 3 m (10 ft) in some places. These regions have higher annual precipitation, in some places over 100 cm (39 in).

 
Cold northwesterly wind over the Great Lakes creating lake-effect snow. Lake-effect snow most frequently occurs in the snowbelt regions of the province.
  • 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 −40 °C (−40 °F) are not uncommon; snow remains on the ground for sometimes over half the year. Snow accumulation can be high in some areas.[20] Precipitation is generally less than 70 cm (28 in) and peaks in the summer months in the form of rain or thunderstorms.[20]

Severe thunderstorms peak in summer. Windsor, in Southern (Southwestern) Ontario, has the most lightning strikes per year in Canada, averaging 33 days of thunderstorm activity per year.[25] In a typical year, Ontario averages 11 confirmed tornado touchdowns. However, over the last 4 years,[when?] it has had upwards of 20 tornado touchdowns per year, with the highest frequency 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.

Average daily maximum and minimum temperatures for selected locations in Ontario
City July (°C) July (°F) January (°C) January (°F)
Windsor (Windsor International Airport)[26] 28/18 82/64 0/−7 31/19
Niagara Falls (NPCSH)[27] 27/17 81/63 0/−8 30/18
Toronto (The Annex)[28] 27/18 80/64 −1/−7 30/20
Midland (Water Pollution Control Plant)[29] 26/16 78/61 −4/–13 25/8
Ottawa (Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport)[30] 27/16 80/60 −6/−14 22/6
Sudbury (Sudbury Airport)[31] 25/13 77/56 −8/−19 18/0
Emo (Emo Radbourne)[32] 25/11 77/52 −9/–22 15/–9
Thunder Bay (Thunder Bay International Airport)[33] 24/11 76/52 −9/−21 18/−5
Kenora (Kenora Airport)[34] 24/15 76/59 −11/−21 12/−5
Moosonee (UA)[35] 23/9 73/48 −14/–26 8/–15

History

Indigenous habitation (pre-1610)

Paleo-Indians were the first people to settle on the lands of Ontario, arriving there after the Laurentide Ice Sheet melted roughly 11,000 years ago.[36] From them, many ethnocultural groups emerged and came to exist on the lands of Ontario: the Algonquins, Mississaugas, Ojibway, Cree, Odawa, Pottowatomi, and Iroquois.[37]

Pays d'en Haut (1610–1763)

In the 15th century, the Byzantine Empire fell, prompting Western Europeans to search for new sea routes to the Far East. Around 1522–1523, Giovanni da Verrazzano persuaded King Francis I of France to commission an expedition to find a western route to Cathay (China) via a Northwest Passage. Though this expedition was unsuccessful, it established the name "New France" for northeastern North America.[38] After a few expeditions, France mostly abandoned North America for 50 years because of its financial crisis; France was involved in the Italian Wars and there were religious wars between Protestants and Catholics.[39] Around 1580 however, the rise of the fur trade (particularly the demand for beaver pelts), reignited French interest.[40]

In 1608, Samuel de Champlain established France's first colonial settlement in New France, the Habitation de Québec (now Quebec City), in the colony of Canada (now southern Quebec). Afterwards, French explorers continued to travel west, establishing new villages along the coasts of the Saint Lawrence River. French explorers, the first of which was Étienne Brûlé who explored the Georgian Bay area in 1610–1612,[41] mapped Southern Ontario and called the region the Pays d'en Haut ("Upper Country"), in reference to the region being upstream of the Saint Lawrence River. The colony of the Pays d'en Haut was formally established in 1610 as an administrative dependency of Canada, and was for defence and business rather than a settlement colony. The territory of the Pays-d'en-Haut was quite large and would today include the province of Ontario, as well as, in whole or in part, the American states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Indigenous peoples were the vast majority of the Pays d'en Haut population.[42]

 
A 1755 map of the Pays d'en Haut region of New France, an area that included most of Ontario

As for Northern Ontario, the English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into Hudson Bay in 1611 and claimed its drainage basin for England. The area would become known as Rupert's Land.

Samuel de Champlain reached Lake Huron in 1615, and French missionaries, such as the Jésuites and Supliciens, began to establish posts along the Great Lakes. The French allied with most Indigenous groups of Ontario, all for the fur trade and for defence against Iroquois attacks (which would later be called the Iroquois Wars). The French would declare their Indigenous allies to be subjects of the King of France and would often act as mediators between different groups. The Iroquois later allied themselves with the British.[43]

From 1634 to 1640, the Huron were devastated by European infectious diseases, such as measles and smallpox, to which they had no immunity.[44] By 1700, the Iroquois had been driven out or left the area that would become Ontario and the Mississaugas of the Ojibwa had settled the north shore of Lake Ontario. The remaining Huron settled north of Quebec.

During the French and Indian War, the North American theater of the Seven Years' War of 1754 to 1763, the British defeated the armies of New France and its Indigenous allies. In the Treaty of Paris 1763 France ceded most of its possessions in North America to Britain. Using the Quebec Act, Britain re-organised the territory into the Province of Quebec.[45]

Province of Quebec (1763–1791)

 
A monument in Hamilton commemorating the United Empire Loyalists, a group of settlers who fled the United States during or after the American Revolution

In 1782–1784, 5,000 United Empire Loyalists entered what is now Ontario following the American Revolution.[46] The Kingdom of Great Britain granted them 200 acres (81 ha) land and other items with which to rebuild their lives.[43] The British also set up reserves 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.

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.

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.

Upper Canada (1791–1841)

 
Map of Upper Canada, 1811

John Graves Simcoe was appointed Upper Canada's first Lieutenant governor in 1793.[47] A second wave of Americans, not all of them necessarily loyalists moved to Upper Canada after 1790 until the pre-war of 1812, many seeking available cheap land, and at the time, lower taxation.

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.

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, the Americans eventually 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 their brief occupation. The British would burn the American capital of Washington, D.C. in 1814.

 
Depiction of the Battle of Queenston Heights, during the War of 1812. Upper Canada was an active theatre of operation during the conflict.

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 following decades. 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.[48]

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,[49] 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 Republic of Canada on Navy Island on the Niagara River.[50]

Canada West (1841–1867)

Although both rebellions were put down in short order, the British government sent Lord Durham to investigate the causes. He recommended self-government be granted and 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.[51] 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.

 
Map of Canada West from 1855. Canada West formed the western portion of the Province of Canada.

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.

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 the 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.

Canadian province (1867–present)

 
An animated map of the changes to the borders of Canada. The borders of Ontario were last changed in 1912.

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.[52]

 
Oliver Mowat, Premier of Ontario from 1872 to 1896

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 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 increases 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.

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.[53]

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 and the McLaughlin Motor Car Company (later General Motors Canada) was founded in 1907. The motor vehicle industry became the most lucrative industry for the Ontario economy during the 20th century.

In July 1912, the Conservative government of 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.

 
Law enforcement confiscate stores of alcohol in Elk Lake in an effort to enforce prohibition. The prohibition measures were introduced in 1916 and were not repealed until 1927.

Influenced by events in the United States, the government of William Hearst introduced prohibition of alcoholic drinks in 1916 with the passing of the Ontario Temperance Act. However, residents could distil 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 strict community standards and revenue generation from the alcohol retail monopoly are upheld.

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.[54] 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.[55][56]

Ontario's official language is English, although there exists a number of French-speaking communities across Ontario.[57] French-language services are made available for communities with a sizeable French-speaking population; a service that is ensured under the French Language Services Act of 1989.

Demographics

 
Population density of Ontario
Historical populations
YearPop.±%
1851952,004—    
18611,396,091+46.6%
18711,620,851+16.1%
18811,926,922+18.9%
18912,114,321+9.7%
19012,182,947+3.2%
19112,527,292+15.8%
19212,933,662+16.1%
19313,431,683+17.0%
19413,787,655+10.4%
19514,597,542+21.4%
19565,404,933+17.6%
19616,236,092+15.4%
19666,960,870+11.6%
19717,703,105+10.7%
19768,264,465+7.3%
19818,625,107+4.4%
19869,101,695+5.5%
199110,084,885+10.8%
199610,753,573+6.6%
200111,410,046+6.1%
200612,160,282+6.6%
201112,851,821+5.7%
201613,448,494+4.6%
202114,223,942+5.8%
Source: Statistics Canada

Population

In the 2021 census, Ontario had a population of 14,223,942 living in 5,491,201 of its 5,929,250 total dwellings, a 5.8 percent change from its 2016 population of 13,448,494. With a land area of 892,411.76 km2 (344,562.11 sq mi), it had a population density of 15.9/km2 (41.3/sq mi) in 2021.[2] The largest population centres in Ontario are Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Kitchener, London and Oshawa, which all have more than 300,000 inhabitants.

Ethnicity

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. Compared to natural increase or interprovincial 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 East Asians, South Asians, Caribbeans, Latin Americans, Europeans, 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 in the province. The number of Indigenous people and visible minorities has been increasing at a faster rate than the general population of Ontario.[58]

Religion

In 2021, 52.1% of the population was Christian, with the largest religious denominations being the Roman Catholic Church (with 26.0% of the population) and the United Church of Canada with (4.1%). Other religions included Islam (6.7%), Hinduism (4.1%). 31.6% of Ontarians had no religious affiliation.[59]

The major religious groups in Ontario in 2021 were:

Religion People %
Total 14,031,750 100  
No religious affiliation 4,433,675 31.6
Catholic 3,654,825 26.0
Protestant 1,893,860 13.5
Other Christians 1,437,275 10.2
Muslim 942,990 6.7
Hindu 573,700 4.1
Christian Orthodox 329,850 2.4
Sikh 300,435 2.1
Jewish 196,100 1.4
Buddhist 164,215 1.2
Other religions 104,830 0.7

In Ontario, Catholics are represented by the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario[60] and the Anglican Protestants by the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario.[61] The Ecclesiastical Province covers most of the geographical province of Ontario[61]

Language

 
English and French displayed on a gantry sign. Communities with sizeable francophone populations are able to receive provincial services in French.

As of the 2021 Canadian Census, the ten most spoken languages in the province included English (13,650,230 or 97.28%), French (1,550,545 or 11.05%), Mandarin (467,420 or 3.33%), Hindi (436,125 or 3.11%), Spanish (401,205 or 2.86%), Punjabi (397,865 or 2.84%), Cantonese (352,135 or 2.51%), Arabic (342,860 or 2.44%), Italian (312,800 or 2.23%), and Urdu (295,175 or 2.1%).[62] The question on knowledge of languages allows for multiple responses.

The principal language of Ontario is English, the province's de facto official language,[63] with approximately 97.2 per cent of Ontarians having proficiency in the language, although only 69.5 per cent of Ontarians reported English as their mother tongue in the 2016 Census.[64] English is one of two official languages of Canada, with the other being French. English and French are the official languages of the courts in Ontario. Approximately 4.6 per cent of the population identified as francophone,[65][note 1] and a total of 11.5 per cent of Ontarians reported having proficiency in French.[64] Approximately 11.2 per cent of Ontarians reported being bilingual in both English and French.[64] Approximately 2.5 per cent of Ontarians have no proficiency in either English or French.[64]

Franco-Ontarians are concentrated in the northeastern, eastern, and extreme southern parts of the province, where under the French Language Services Act,[66] provincial government services are required to be available in French if at least 10 per cent of a designated area's population report French as their native language or if an urban centre has at least 5,000 francophones.

Other languages spoken by residents include Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Malayalam, Mandarin, Marathi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Sinhalese, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Telugu, Tamil, Tibetan, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese.[67]

Economy

Ontario is Canada's leading manufacturing province, accounting for 52% of the total national manufacturing shipments in 2004.[68] Ontario's largest trading partner is the American state of Michigan. As of April 2012, Moody's bond-rating agency rated Ontario debt at AA2/stable,[69] while S&P rated it AA-.[70] Dominion Bond Rating Service rated it AA(low) in January 2013.[71] Long known as a bastion of Canadian manufacturing and financial solvency, Ontario's public debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to be 38.4% in fiscal year 2023–2024.[72]

 
Container ship at Algoma Steel. The Great Lakes provide ocean access for industries in the province's interior.

Mining and the forest products industry, notably pulp and paper, are vital to the economy of Northern Ontario. As of 2011, roughly 200,000 ha are clearcut each year; herbicides for hardwood suppression are applied to a third of the total.[73] 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 billion.[74]

An abundance of natural resources, excellent transportation links to the North 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.

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.[75] Ontario's steel industry was once centred in Hamilton. Hamilton harbour, which can be seen from 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 previous year.[76] Algoma Steel maintains a plant in Sault Ste Marie.

 
A worker at the Oakville Assembly installs a battery in an automobile. The automotive industry is a contributor to the economy of Ontario.

Ontario surpassed Michigan in car production, assembling more than 2,696,000 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, that resulted 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,[77] and Honda also 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,[78] compared to 8.7 percent in January 2010[79] 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.[80] 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."[81][82]

 
Toronto's Financial District serves as the centre for Canada's financial services.

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 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.[83][84]

The information technology sector is important, particularly in the Silicon Valley North section of Ottawa, home to Canada's largest technology park.[85] IT is also important in the Waterloo Region, where the headquarters of BlackBerry is located.[86]

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.[87]

Agriculture

 
Aerial view of farms in Waterloo. A significant portion of the land in Southern Ontario is used as farmland.

Once the dominant industry, agriculture now uses a small percentage of the workforce. 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.

Ontario Farming 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006
  Number of Farms     72,713   68,633   67,520   59,728   57,211  
  Total   Hectares       5,646,582     5,451,379     5,616,860     5,466,233     5,386,453  
  Acres       13,953,009     13,470,652     13,879,565     13,507,358     13,310,217  
  Planted  
  Crops  
  Hectares     3,457,966     3,411,667     3,544,927     3,656,705     3,660,941  
  Acres       8,544,821     8,430,438     8,759,707     9,035,916     9,046,383  
Source: Statistics Canada, Census of Agriculture.[88]
 
Grapevines growing in Prince Edward County, a wine-growing region

Common types of farms reported in the 2001 census include those for cattle, small grains and dairy. The fruit- and wine industry is primarily on the Niagara Peninsula, Prince Edward County, and along the northern shore of 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.[89] 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.[90] On December 10, 2013, Kellogg's announced layoffs for more than 509 workers at a cereal manufacture plant in London.[91]

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[citation needed] had to the Canadian economy.

 
A sign marking the Ottawa Greenbelt, an initiative to protect farmland and limit urban sprawl

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 150,000 acres (61,000 ha) 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.[92] In an effort to protect the farmland and green spaces of the National Capital Region, and Greater Toronto Area, the Federal[93] and Provincial Governments introduced greenbelts around Ottawa[94] and the Golden Horseshoe, limiting urban development in these areas.[95]

Energy

Ontario's rivers make it rich in hydroelectric energy.[96] In 2009, Ontario Power Generation generated 70 percent of the province's electricity, of which 51 percent is nuclear, 39% is hydroelectric and 10% is fossil-fuel derived.[97] By 2025, nuclear power is projected to supply 42%, while fossil-fuel-derived generation is projected to decrease slightly over the next 20 years.[98] 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.[99] In December 2013, the government projected a 42 percent hike by 2018, and 68 percent by 2033.[98] Industrial rates are projected to rise by 33% by 2018, and 55% in 2033.[98]

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009 (GEA), takes a two-pronged approach to commercializing renewable energy; first, it aims to bring more renewable energy sources to the province; and secondly, it aims to adopt more energy-efficiency measures to help conserve energy. The bill envisaged appointing a Renewable Energy Facilitator to provide "one-window" assistance and support to project developers to facilitate project approvals.[100]

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.[100]

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's capacity).[101]

Government, law and politics

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); both are acceptable but the latter is uncommon. 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.

Law

 
Osgoode Hall houses the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the appellate court for the province.

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. The Municipal Act, 2001 (Ontario)[102] is the main statute governing the creation, administration and government of municipalities in the Canadian province of Ontario, other than the City of Toronto. After being passed in 2001, it came into force on January 1, 2003, replacing the previous Municipal Act.[103] Effective January 1, 2007, the Municipal Act, 2001 (the Act) was significantly amended by the Municipal Statute Law Amendment Act, 2006 (Bill 130).[104][105]

Politics

 
The Ontario Legislative Building at Queen's Park. The building serves as the meeting place for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

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 centre to centre-left Ontario Liberal Party, and Green Party of Ontario. The Progressive Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats have each governed the province, while the Greens elected their first member to the Legislative Assembly in 2018.

The 2018 provincial election resulted in a Progressive Conservative majority government under party leader Doug Ford, who was sworn in as Premier on June 29. Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath was sworn in as the leader of her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

Administrative divisions

 
Map of the counties, regional municipalities, districts, and municipalities of Ontario.

Ontario has three types of first-level administrative divisions. They include single-tier municipalities, upper-tier municipalities (which may be in the form of either regional municipalities or counties), and districts. Upper-tier municipalities and districts are made up of smaller municipalities and other types of administrative divisions.

Administrative divisions differ primarily in the services that they provide to their residents, with the differing structures of these administrative regions resulting in disparities among Ontario's different regions. The administrative regions of Ontario are roughly coterminous with the census divisions used by Statistics Canada, although some exceptions do exist.[note 2]

Urban areas

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.[106]

CMA (largest other included municipalities in brackets) 2001 2006 2011 2016 % Change
Toronto CMA (Mississauga, Brampton) 4,682,897  5,113,149  5,583,064  5,928,040 6.2
Ottawa CMA (Gatineau, Clarence-Rockland) * 1,067,800  1,130,761  1,254,919 1,323,783 4.4
Hamilton CMA (Burlington, Grimsby) 662,401  692,911  721,053  747,545 3.7
Kitchener CMA (Cambridge, Waterloo) 414,284  451,235  496,383 523,894 5.5
London CMA (St. Thomas, Strathroy-Caradoc) 435,600  457,720  474,786  494,069 4.1
St. Catharines CMA (Niagara Falls, Welland) 377,009  390,317  392,184  406,074 3.5
Oshawa CMA (Whitby, Clarington) 296,298  330,594  356,177  379,848 6.6
Windsor CMA (Lakeshore, LaSalle) 307,877  323,342  319,246  329,144 3.1
Barrie CMA (Innisfil, Springwater) 148,480  177,061  187,013  197,059 5.4
Sudbury CMA (Whitefish Lake, Wanapitei Reserve) 155,601  158,258  160,770  164,689 1.0
Kingston CMA 146,838  152,358  159,561  161,175 1.0

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

Ten largest municipalities by population[107]
Municipality 2001 2006 2011 2016
Toronto 2,481,494 2,503,281 2,615,060 2,731,571
Ottawa 774,072 812,129 883,391 934,243
Mississauga 612,925 668,549 713,443 721,599
Brampton 325,428 433,806 523,911 593,638
Hamilton 490,268 504,559 519,949 536,917
London 336,539 352,395 366,151 383,822
Markham 208,615 261,573 301,709 328,996
Vaughan 182,022 238,866 288,301 306,233
Kitchener 190,399 204,668 219,153 233,222
Windsor 209,218 216,473 210,891 217,188

Education

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 Stephen Lecce, the Minister of Colleges and Universities is Ross Romano, and the Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development Monte McNaughton.

Higher education

Higher education in Ontario includes post-secondary 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.[108] The minister is Merrilee Fullerton. The ministry administers laws covering 22 public universities,[109] 24 public colleges (21 Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) and three Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning (ITALs)),[110] 17 privately funded religious universities,[111] and over 500 private career colleges.[112] The Canadian constitution provides each province with the responsibility for higher education and there is no corresponding national federal ministry of higher education.[113] 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. 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.

Culture

Outdoor recreation is popular in Southern Ontario and the region is home to numerous cultural events and festivals. There is no single regional dish in Southern Ontario, but fish and wild game, such as walleye and moose, are popular. Poutine, a dish that originated in Quebec and is popular in Northern Ontario, can also be found in the region.

In 2019, the government of Ontario passed legislation that established the Poet Laureate of Ontario.[114]

Songs and slogans

 
An Ontario licence plate with the slogan Yours to Discover at the bottom of the plate

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,[115] apparently inspired by a tourism slogan, "Discover Ontario", dating back to 1927.[116] Plates with the French equivalent, Tant à découvrir, were made available to the public beginning in May 2008.[117] (From 1988 to 1990,[118] "Ontario Incredible"[119] gave "Yours to Discover" a brief respite.)

A Place to Stand, a Place to Grow is a song commissioned by the government of Ontario for its pavilion in Expo 67, and an unofficial anthem of the province.[120] As a part of the Canada 150 celebrations in 2017, the provincial government released an updated rendition.[120] In 2007, the provincial tourism agency commissioned a new song, "There's No Place Like This" is featured in television advertising, performed by Ontario artists including Molly Johnson, Brian Byrne, Keshia Chanté,[121] as well as Tomi Swick and Arkells.

Professional sports

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

Club Sport League City Stadium
Atlético Ottawa Soccer CPL Ottawa TD Place Stadium
Belleville Senators Ice hockey AHL Belleville CAA Arena
Forge FC Soccer CPL Hamilton Tim Hortons Field
Guelph Nighthawks Basketball CEBL Guelph Sleeman Centre
Hamilton Honey Badgers Basketball CEBL Hamilton FirstOntario Centre
Hamilton Tiger-Cats Football CFL Hamilton Tim Hortons Field
KW Titans Basketball NBLC Kitchener Kitchener Memorial Auditorium
London Lightning Basketball NBLC London Budweiser Gardens
Niagara River Lions Basketball CEBL St. Catharines Meridian Centre
Ottawa Blackjacks Basketball CEBL Ottawa TD Place Arena
Ottawa Redblacks Football CFL Ottawa TD Place Stadium
Ottawa Senators Ice hockey NHL Ottawa Canadian Tire Centre
Ottawa Titans Baseball FL Ottawa Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park
Raptors 905 Basketball G League Mississauga Paramount Fine Foods Centre
Sudbury Five Basketball NBLC Greater Sudbury Sudbury Community Arena
Toronto Argonauts Football CFL Toronto BMO Field
Toronto Arrows Rugby union MLR Toronto York Lions Stadium
Toronto Blue Jays Baseball MLB Toronto Rogers Centre
Toronto FC Soccer MLS Toronto BMO Field
Toronto FC II Soccer USL Toronto Lamport Stadium
Toronto Maple Leafs Ice hockey NHL Toronto Scotiabank Arena
Toronto Marlies Ice hockey AHL Toronto Coca-Cola Coliseum
Toronto Raptors Basketball NBA Toronto Scotiabank Arena
Toronto Rock Lacrosse NLL Hamilton FirstOntario Centre
Toronto Wolfpack Rugby league NARL Toronto Lamport Stadium
Windsor Express Basketball NBLC Windsor WFCU Centre
York United FC Soccer CPL Toronto York Lions Stadium

Notable residents

Museums

Transportation

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.

Air travel

 
Thunder Bay International Airport is one of five international airports operating in Ontario.

Important airports in the province include Toronto Pearson International Airport, which is the busiest airport in Canada,[122] handling nearly 50 million passengers in 2018.[123] 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). In addition to airports in Ottawa, and Toronto, the province also operates three other international airports, the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Hamilton, the Thunder Bay International Airport in Thunder Bay and the London International Airport in London. John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport serves as cargo hub, reliever for Pearson, and sometimes a hub for discount airlines.

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.

Remote and 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 by year-round road) or rail.

Railways

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.[124][125]

There are several city rail-transit systems in the Province. The Toronto Transit Commission operates subways, as well as streetcars (being one of the busiest streetcar systems in North America). OC Transpo operates a light rail metro system in Ottawa.[126] In addition, Waterloo region operates a surface light rail system.[127] Plans to build a light rail line is also underway in the Regional Municipality of Peel.[128][129]

Roads

 
Highway 400 in Seguin. The roadway forms a part of the province's 400-series highways.

400-series highways make up the primary vehicular network in the south of province, and they connect at a number of points to border crossings to the United States, and Quebec, 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,[130][131] Highway 401 being the busiest highway in North America. Other provincial highways and regional roads inter-connect the remainder of the province.

Waterways

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. Ontario's three largest ports are the Port of Hamilton, Port of Thunder Bay and the Port of Windsor. Ontario's only saltwater port is located in the town of Moosonee on James Bay.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The following figure is taken from the province's "Inclusive Definition of Francophones," (IDF) which includes those whose mother tongue is French, and those whose mother tongue is not French, but have proficiency in the language, and use French as the primary language at home.
  2. ^ Statistics Canada treats Norfolk County and Haldimand County as one single census division; the County of Brant and City of Brantford are also treated as one single census division. There would otherwise be 51 census divisions instead of the 49 official ones used by Statistics Canada.

References

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  3. ^ a b "Land and freshwater area, by province and territory". Statistics Canada. February 1, 2005. from the original on October 19, 2012. Retrieved August 5, 2012.
  4. ^ "Population estimates, quarterly". Statistics Canada. June 14, 2018. from the original on June 19, 2016. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
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  10. ^ Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada.
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  12. ^ . Statistics Canada. Archived from the original on June 10, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2007.
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ontario, this, article, about, canadian, province, other, uses, disambiguation, ɛər, listen, tair, french, taʁjo, thirteen, provinces, territories, canada, located, central, canada, canada, most, populous, province, with, percent, country, population, second, . This article is about the Canadian province For other uses see Ontario disambiguation Ontario ɒ n ˈ t ɛer i oʊ listen on TAIR ee oh French ɔ taʁjo is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada 9 10 Located in Central Canada it is Canada s most populous province with 38 3 percent of the country s population and is the second largest province by total area after Quebec 11 12 Ontario is Canada s fourth largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included 3 It is home to the nation s capital city Ottawa and the nation s most populous city Toronto 13 which is Ontario s provincial capital OntarioProvinceFlagCoat of armsMotto s Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet Latin Loyal she began loyal she remains BC AB SK MB ON QC NB PE NS NL YT NT NUCoordinates 49 15 N 84 30 W 49 250 N 84 500 W 49 250 84 500 1 Coordinates 49 15 N 84 30 W 49 250 N 84 500 W 49 250 84 500 1 CountryCanadaConfederationJuly 1 1867 1st with New Brunswick Nova Scotia Quebec Capital and largest city TorontoLargest metroGreater Toronto AreaGovernment TypeParliamentary constitutional monarchy Lieutenant GovernorElizabeth Dowdeswell PremierDoug FordLegislatureLegislative Assembly of OntarioFederal representationParliament of CanadaHouse seats121 of 338 35 8 Senate seats24 of 105 22 9 Area 3 Total1 076 395 km2 415 598 sq mi Land892 411 km2 344 562 sq mi Water158 654 km2 61 257 sq mi 14 7 Rank4th 10 8 of CanadaPopulation 2021 Total14 223 942 2 Estimate Q4 2022 15 262 660 4 Rank1st Density15 94 km2 41 3 sq mi DemonymOntarian 5 Official languagesEnglish 6 GDP Rank1st Total 2015 CA 763 276 billion 7 Per capitaCA 59 879 7th HDI HDI 2019 0 937 8 Very high 3rd Time zonesEast of 90th meridian westUTC 05 00 EST Summer DST UTC 04 00 EDT West of 90th meridian west except Atikokan and Pickle LakeUTC 06 00 CST Summer DST UTC 05 00 CDT Atikokan and Pickle Lake No DST UTC 05 00 EST Canadian postal abbr ONPostal code prefixK L M N PISO 3166 codeCA ONFlowerWhite trilliumTreeEastern white pineBirdCommon loonRankings include all provinces and territoriesOntario 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 2 700 km 1 678 mi border with the United States follows inland waterways from the westerly Lake of the Woods eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes Saint Lawrence River drainage system There is only about 1 km 0 6 mi of actual land border made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border 14 The great majority of Ontario s population and arable land is in Southern Ontario In contrast Northern Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation 15 Contents 1 Etymology 2 Geography 2 1 Climate 3 History 3 1 Indigenous habitation pre 1610 3 2 Pays d en Haut 1610 1763 3 3 Province of Quebec 1763 1791 3 4 Upper Canada 1791 1841 3 5 Canada West 1841 1867 3 6 Canadian province 1867 present 4 Demographics 4 1 Population 4 2 Ethnicity 4 3 Religion 4 4 Language 5 Economy 5 1 Agriculture 5 2 Energy 6 Government law and politics 6 1 Law 6 2 Politics 6 3 Administrative divisions 6 4 Urban areas 7 Education 7 1 Higher education 8 Culture 8 1 Songs and slogans 8 2 Professional sports 8 3 Notable residents 8 4 Museums 9 Transportation 9 1 Air travel 9 2 Railways 9 3 Roads 9 4 Waterways 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 Sources 14 Further reading 15 External linksEtymology EditOntario is a term thought to be derived from Indigenous origins either Ontari io a Huron Wyandot word meaning great lake 16 or possibly skanadario which means beautiful water or sparkling water in the Iroquoian languages 17 Ontario has about 250 000 freshwater lakes 18 The first mention of the name Ontario was in 1641 when Ontario was used to describe the land on the north shore of the easternmost part of the Great Lakes 19 It was adopted as the official name of the new province at Confederation in 1867 19 Geography EditMain article Geography of Ontario See also List of census divisions of Ontario Geography of Canada and List of parks and protected areas of Ontario Typical landscape of the Canadian Shield at Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial Park located in Central Ontario The thinly populated Canadian Shield which dominates the northwestern and central portions of the province and comprises over half the land area of Ontario Although this area mostly does not support agriculture it is rich in minerals partly covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests and studded with lakes and rivers Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub regions Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the extreme north and northeast mainly swampy and sparsely forested Southern Ontario which is further sub divided into four sub regions Central Ontario although not actually the province s geographic centre Eastern Ontario Golden Horseshoe and Southwestern Ontario parts of which were formerly referred to as Western Ontario 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 693 metres 2 274 ft above sea level in Temagami Northeastern Ontario In the south elevations of over 500 m 1 640 ft 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 covers approximately 87 of the province s surface area conversely Southern Ontario contains 94 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 Climate Edit See also Climate of Ontario Koppen climate types of Ontario Ontario s climate varies by season and location 20 Three air sources affect it 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 21 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 21 In general most of Ontario s climate is classified as humid continental 21 Ontario has four main climatic regions The surrounding Great Lakes greatly influence the climatic region of southern Ontario 20 During the fall and winter the release of heat stored by the lakes moderates the climate near the shores 22 This gives parts of southern Ontario milder winters than mid continental areas at lower latitudes 22 Parts of Southwestern Ontario generally south of a line from Sarnia Toronto have a moderate humid continental climate Koppen climate classification Dfa similar to 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 750 1 000 mm 30 39 in 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 23 The next climatic region is Central and Eastern Ontario which has a moderate humid continental climate Koppen 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 21 The smallest climatic region is located at the most northeastern part of the Niagara Peninsula which has a temperate humid climate Koppen Cfa due to moderating effects by Lake Ontario the Niagara River and battling air masses from the Gulf of Mexico during the winter months 24 It is one of the most temperate regions in the entire province In the northeastern parts of Ontario extending south as far 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 21 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 to upwards of 3 m 10 ft in some places These regions have higher annual precipitation in some places over 100 cm 39 in Cold northwesterly wind over the Great Lakes creating lake effect snow Lake effect snow most frequently occurs in the snowbelt regions of the province The northernmost parts of Ontario primarily north of 50 N have a subarctic climate Koppen 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 40 C 40 F are not uncommon snow remains on the ground for sometimes over half the year Snow accumulation can be high in some areas 20 Precipitation is generally less than 70 cm 28 in and peaks in the summer months in the form of rain or thunderstorms 20 Severe thunderstorms peak in summer Windsor in Southern Southwestern Ontario has the most lightning strikes per year in Canada averaging 33 days of thunderstorm activity per year 25 In a typical year Ontario averages 11 confirmed tornado touchdowns However over the last 4 years when it has had upwards of 20 tornado touchdowns per year with the highest frequency 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 Average daily maximum and minimum temperatures for selected locations in Ontario City July C July F January C January F Windsor Windsor International Airport 26 28 18 82 64 0 7 31 19Niagara Falls NPCSH 27 27 17 81 63 0 8 30 18Toronto The Annex 28 27 18 80 64 1 7 30 20Midland Water Pollution Control Plant 29 26 16 78 61 4 13 25 8Ottawa Ottawa Macdonald Cartier International Airport 30 27 16 80 60 6 14 22 6Sudbury Sudbury Airport 31 25 13 77 56 8 19 18 0Emo Emo Radbourne 32 25 11 77 52 9 22 15 9Thunder Bay Thunder Bay International Airport 33 24 11 76 52 9 21 18 5Kenora Kenora Airport 34 24 15 76 59 11 21 12 5Moosonee UA 35 23 9 73 48 14 26 8 15History EditMain article History of Ontario Indigenous habitation pre 1610 Edit Main article Settlement of the Americas Paleo Indians were the first people to settle on the lands of Ontario arriving there after the Laurentide Ice Sheet melted roughly 11 000 years ago 36 From them many ethnocultural groups emerged and came to exist on the lands of Ontario the Algonquins Mississaugas Ojibway Cree Odawa Pottowatomi and Iroquois 37 Pays d en Haut 1610 1763 Edit Main articles Exploration of North America New France and Pays d en Haut In the 15th century the Byzantine Empire fell prompting Western Europeans to search for new sea routes to the Far East Around 1522 1523 Giovanni da Verrazzano persuaded King Francis I of France to commission an expedition to find a western route to Cathay China via a Northwest Passage Though this expedition was unsuccessful it established the name New France for northeastern North America 38 After a few expeditions France mostly abandoned North America for 50 years because of its financial crisis France was involved in the Italian Wars and there were religious wars between Protestants and Catholics 39 Around 1580 however the rise of the fur trade particularly the demand for beaver pelts reignited French interest 40 In 1608 Samuel de Champlain established France s first colonial settlement in New France the Habitation de Quebec now Quebec City in the colony of Canada now southern Quebec Afterwards French explorers continued to travel west establishing new villages along the coasts of the Saint Lawrence River French explorers the first of which was Etienne Brule who explored the Georgian Bay area in 1610 1612 41 mapped Southern Ontario and called the region the Pays d en Haut Upper Country in reference to the region being upstream of the Saint Lawrence River The colony of the Pays d en Haut was formally established in 1610 as an administrative dependency of Canada and was for defence and business rather than a settlement colony The territory of the Pays d en Haut was quite large and would today include the province of Ontario as well as in whole or in part the American states of Minnesota Wisconsin Illinois Indiana Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania and New York Indigenous peoples were the vast majority of the Pays d en Haut population 42 A 1755 map of the Pays d en Haut region of New France an area that included most of OntarioAs for Northern Ontario the English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into Hudson Bay in 1611 and claimed its drainage basin for England The area would become known as Rupert s Land Samuel de Champlain reached Lake Huron in 1615 and French missionaries such as the Jesuites and Supliciens began to establish posts along the Great Lakes The French allied with most Indigenous groups of Ontario all for the fur trade and for defence against Iroquois attacks which would later be called the Iroquois Wars The French would declare their Indigenous allies to be subjects of the King of France and would often act as mediators between different groups The Iroquois later allied themselves with the British 43 From 1634 to 1640 the Huron were devastated by European infectious diseases such as measles and smallpox to which they had no immunity 44 By 1700 the Iroquois had been driven out or left the area that would become Ontario and the Mississaugas of the Ojibwa had settled the north shore of Lake Ontario The remaining Huron settled north of Quebec During the French and Indian War the North American theater of the Seven Years War of 1754 to 1763 the British defeated the armies of New France and its Indigenous allies In the Treaty of Paris 1763 France ceded most of its possessions in North America to Britain Using the Quebec Act Britain re organised the territory into the Province of Quebec 45 Province of Quebec 1763 1791 Edit Main article Province of Quebec 1763 1791 A monument in Hamilton commemorating the United Empire Loyalists a group of settlers who fled the United States during or after the American Revolution In 1782 1784 5 000 United Empire Loyalists entered what is now Ontario following the American Revolution 46 The Kingdom of Great Britain granted them 200 acres 81 ha land and other items with which to rebuild their lives 43 The British also set up reserves 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 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 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 Upper Canada 1791 1841 Edit Main article Upper Canada Map of Upper Canada 1811 John Graves Simcoe was appointed Upper Canada s first Lieutenant governor in 1793 47 A second wave of Americans not all of them necessarily loyalists moved to Upper Canada after 1790 until the pre war of 1812 many seeking available cheap land and at the time lower taxation 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 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 the Americans eventually 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 their brief occupation The British would burn the American capital of Washington D C in 1814 Depiction of the Battle of Queenston Heights during the War of 1812 Upper Canada was an active theatre of operation during the conflict 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 following decades 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 48 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 49 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 Republic of Canada on Navy Island on the Niagara River 50 Canada West 1841 1867 Edit Main article Canada West Although both rebellions were put down in short order the British government sent Lord Durham to investigate the causes He recommended self government be granted and 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 51 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 Map of Canada West from 1855 Canada West formed the western portion of the Province of Canada 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 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 the 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 Canadian province 1867 present Edit An animated map of the changes to the borders of Canada The borders of Ontario were last changed in 1912 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 52 Oliver Mowat Premier of Ontario from 1872 to 1896 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 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 increases 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 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 53 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 and the McLaughlin Motor Car Company later General Motors Canada was founded in 1907 The motor vehicle industry became the most lucrative industry for the Ontario economy during the 20th century In July 1912 the Conservative government of 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 Law enforcement confiscate stores of alcohol in Elk Lake in an effort to enforce prohibition The prohibition measures were introduced in 1916 and were not repealed until 1927 Influenced by events in the United States the government of William Hearst introduced prohibition of alcoholic drinks in 1916 with the passing of the Ontario Temperance Act However residents could distil 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 strict community standards and revenue generation from the alcohol retail monopoly are upheld 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 Quebecois 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 54 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 55 56 Ontario s official language is English although there exists a number of French speaking communities across Ontario 57 French language services are made available for communities with a sizeable French speaking population a service that is ensured under the French Language Services Act of 1989 Demographics EditMain article Demographics of Ontario See also List of population centres in Ontario Population density of Ontario Historical populationsYearPop 1851952 004 18611 396 091 46 6 18711 620 851 16 1 18811 926 922 18 9 18912 114 321 9 7 19012 182 947 3 2 19112 527 292 15 8 19212 933 662 16 1 19313 431 683 17 0 19413 787 655 10 4 19514 597 542 21 4 19565 404 933 17 6 19616 236 092 15 4 19666 960 870 11 6 19717 703 105 10 7 19768 264 465 7 3 19818 625 107 4 4 19869 101 695 5 5 199110 084 885 10 8 199610 753 573 6 6 200111 410 046 6 1 200612 160 282 6 6 201112 851 821 5 7 201613 448 494 4 6 202114 223 942 5 8 Source Statistics CanadaPopulation Edit In the 2021 census Ontario had a population of 14 223 942 living in 5 491 201 of its 5 929 250 total dwellings a 5 8 percent change from its 2016 population of 13 448 494 With a land area of 892 411 76 km2 344 562 11 sq mi it had a population density of 15 9 km2 41 3 sq mi in 2021 2 The largest population centres in Ontario are Toronto Ottawa Hamilton Kitchener London and Oshawa which all have more than 300 000 inhabitants Ethnicity Edit Main article Demographics of Ontario Ethnic origins 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 Compared to natural increase or interprovincial 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 East Asians South Asians Caribbeans Latin Americans Europeans 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 Metis descent There was also a small number of Inuit in the province The number of Indigenous people and visible minorities has been increasing at a faster rate than the general population of Ontario 58 Religion Edit Main article Demographics of Ontario Religion In 2021 52 1 of the population was Christian with the largest religious denominations being the Roman Catholic Church with 26 0 of the population and the United Church of Canada with 4 1 Other religions included Islam 6 7 Hinduism 4 1 31 6 of Ontarians had no religious affiliation 59 The major religious groups in Ontario in 2021 were Religion People Total 14 031 750 100 No religious affiliation 4 433 675 31 6Catholic 3 654 825 26 0Protestant 1 893 860 13 5Other Christians 1 437 275 10 2Muslim 942 990 6 7Hindu 573 700 4 1Christian Orthodox 329 850 2 4Sikh 300 435 2 1Jewish 196 100 1 4Buddhist 164 215 1 2Other religions 104 830 0 7In Ontario Catholics are represented by the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario 60 and the Anglican Protestants by the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario 61 The Ecclesiastical Province covers most of the geographical province of Ontario 61 Language Edit Main article Demographics of Ontario Language See also Franco Ontarian English and French displayed on a gantry sign Communities with sizeable francophone populations are able to receive provincial services in French As of the 2021 Canadian Census the ten most spoken languages in the province included English 13 650 230 or 97 28 French 1 550 545 or 11 05 Mandarin 467 420 or 3 33 Hindi 436 125 or 3 11 Spanish 401 205 or 2 86 Punjabi 397 865 or 2 84 Cantonese 352 135 or 2 51 Arabic 342 860 or 2 44 Italian 312 800 or 2 23 and Urdu 295 175 or 2 1 62 The question on knowledge of languages allows for multiple responses The principal language of Ontario is English the province s de facto official language 63 with approximately 97 2 per cent of Ontarians having proficiency in the language although only 69 5 per cent of Ontarians reported English as their mother tongue in the 2016 Census 64 English is one of two official languages of Canada with the other being French English and French are the official languages of the courts in Ontario Approximately 4 6 per cent of the population identified as francophone 65 note 1 and a total of 11 5 per cent of Ontarians reported having proficiency in French 64 Approximately 11 2 per cent of Ontarians reported being bilingual in both English and French 64 Approximately 2 5 per cent of Ontarians have no proficiency in either English or French 64 Franco Ontarians are concentrated in the northeastern eastern and extreme southern parts of the province where under the French Language Services Act 66 provincial government services are required to be available in French if at least 10 per cent of a designated area s population report French as their native language or if an urban centre has at least 5 000 francophones Other languages spoken by residents include Arabic Bengali Cantonese Dutch German Greek Gujarati Hindi Hebrew Italian Korean Malayalam Mandarin Marathi Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Russian Sinhalese Somali Spanish Tagalog Telugu Tamil Tibetan Ukrainian Urdu and Vietnamese 67 Economy EditMain article Economy of Ontario Ontario is Canada s leading manufacturing province accounting for 52 of the total national manufacturing shipments in 2004 68 Ontario s largest trading partner is the American state of Michigan As of April 2012 update Moody s bond rating agency rated Ontario debt at AA2 stable 69 while S amp P rated it AA 70 Dominion Bond Rating Service rated it AA low in January 2013 71 Long known as a bastion of Canadian manufacturing and financial solvency Ontario s public debt to GDP ratio is projected to be 38 4 in fiscal year 2023 2024 72 Container ship at Algoma Steel The Great Lakes provide ocean access for industries in the province s interior Mining and the forest products industry notably pulp and paper are vital to the economy of Northern Ontario As of 2011 roughly 200 000 ha are clearcut each year herbicides for hardwood suppression are applied to a third of the total 73 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 billion 74 An abundance of natural resources excellent transportation links to the North 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 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 75 Ontario s steel industry was once centred in Hamilton Hamilton harbour which can be seen from 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 previous year 76 Algoma Steel maintains a plant in Sault Ste Marie A worker at the Oakville Assembly installs a battery in an automobile The automotive industry is a contributor to the economy of Ontario Ontario surpassed Michigan in car production assembling more than 2 696 000 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 that resulted 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 77 and Honda also 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 78 compared to 8 7 percent in January 2010 79 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 80 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 81 82 Toronto s Financial District serves as the centre for Canada s financial services 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 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 83 84 The information technology sector is important particularly in the Silicon Valley North section of Ottawa home to Canada s largest technology park 85 IT is also important in the Waterloo Region where the headquarters of BlackBerry is located 86 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 87 Agriculture Edit Aerial view of farms in Waterloo A significant portion of the land in Southern Ontario is used as farmland Once the dominant industry agriculture now uses a small percentage of the workforce 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 Ontario Farming 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006 Number of Farms 72 713 68 633 67 520 59 728 57 211 Total Hectares 5 646 582 5 451 379 5 616 860 5 466 233 5 386 453 Acres 13 953 009 13 470 652 13 879 565 13 507 358 13 310 217 Planted Crops Hectares 3 457 966 3 411 667 3 544 927 3 656 705 3 660 941 Acres 8 544 821 8 430 438 8 759 707 9 035 916 9 046 383 Source Statistics Canada Census of Agriculture 88 vte Grapevines growing in Prince Edward County a wine growing region Common types of farms reported in the 2001 census include those for cattle small grains and dairy The fruit and wine industry is primarily on the Niagara Peninsula Prince Edward County and along the northern shore of 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 89 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 90 On December 10 2013 Kellogg s announced layoffs for more than 509 workers at a cereal manufacture plant in London 91 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 citation needed had to the Canadian economy A sign marking the Ottawa Greenbelt an initiative to protect farmland and limit urban sprawl 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 150 000 acres 61 000 ha 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 92 In an effort to protect the farmland and green spaces of the National Capital Region and Greater Toronto Area the Federal 93 and Provincial Governments introduced greenbelts around Ottawa 94 and the Golden Horseshoe limiting urban development in these areas 95 Energy Edit See also Energy policy of Canada Renewable energy in Canada and Smart grid Ontario s rivers make it rich in hydroelectric energy 96 In 2009 Ontario Power Generation generated 70 percent of the province s electricity of which 51 percent is nuclear 39 is hydroelectric and 10 is fossil fuel derived 97 By 2025 nuclear power is projected to supply 42 while fossil fuel derived generation is projected to decrease slightly over the next 20 years 98 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 The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is one of three nuclear power stations in Ontario 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 99 In December 2013 the government projected a 42 percent hike by 2018 and 68 percent by 2033 98 Industrial rates are projected to rise by 33 by 2018 and 55 in 2033 98 The Green Energy and Green Economy Act 2009 GEA takes a two pronged approach to commercializing renewable energy first it aims to bring more renewable energy sources to the province and secondly it aims to adopt more energy efficiency measures to help conserve energy The bill envisaged appointing a Renewable Energy Facilitator to provide one window assistance and support to project developers to facilitate project approvals 100 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 100 The Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Generating Stations are hydroelectric plants located in Niagara Falls 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 s capacity 101 Government law and politics EditFurther information Monarchy in Ontario Executive Council of Ontario and Local government in Ontario 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 deputes de l Assemblee legislative in French but they have also been called MLAs Members of the Legislative Assembly both are acceptable but the latter is uncommon 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 Law Edit Osgoode Hall houses the Court of Appeal for Ontario the appellate court for the province Further information Courts of Ontario 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 The Municipal Act 2001 Ontario 102 is the main statute governing the creation administration and government of municipalities in the Canadian province of Ontario other than the City of Toronto After being passed in 2001 it came into force on January 1 2003 replacing the previous Municipal Act 103 Effective January 1 2007 the Municipal Act 2001 the Act was significantly amended by the Municipal Statute Law Amendment Act 2006 Bill 130 104 105 Politics Edit Main article Politics of Ontario The Ontario Legislative Building at Queen s Park The building serves as the meeting place for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario 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 centre to centre left Ontario Liberal Party and Green Party of Ontario The Progressive Conservatives Liberals and New Democrats have each governed the province while the Greens elected their first member to the Legislative Assembly in 2018 The 2018 provincial election resulted in a Progressive Conservative majority government under party leader Doug Ford who was sworn in as Premier on June 29 Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath was sworn in as the leader of her Majesty s Loyal Opposition Administrative divisions Edit Map of the counties regional municipalities districts and municipalities of Ontario Ontario has three types of first level administrative divisions They include single tier municipalities upper tier municipalities which may be in the form of either regional municipalities or counties and districts Upper tier municipalities and districts are made up of smaller municipalities and other types of administrative divisions Administrative divisions differ primarily in the services that they provide to their residents with the differing structures of these administrative regions resulting in disparities among Ontario s different regions The administrative regions of Ontario are roughly coterminous with the census divisions used by Statistics Canada although some exceptions do exist note 2 Urban areas Edit See also Golden Horseshoe National Capital Region Canada and Detroit Windsor 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 106 CMA largest other included municipalities in brackets 2001 2006 2011 2016 ChangeToronto CMA Mississauga Brampton 4 682 897 5 113 149 5 583 064 5 928 040 6 2Ottawa CMA Gatineau Clarence Rockland 1 067 800 1 130 761 1 254 919 1 323 783 4 4Hamilton CMA Burlington Grimsby 662 401 692 911 721 053 747 545 3 7Kitchener CMA Cambridge Waterloo 414 284 451 235 496 383 523 894 5 5London CMA St Thomas Strathroy Caradoc 435 600 457 720 474 786 494 069 4 1St Catharines CMA Niagara Falls Welland 377 009 390 317 392 184 406 074 3 5Oshawa CMA Whitby Clarington 296 298 330 594 356 177 379 848 6 6Windsor CMA Lakeshore LaSalle 307 877 323 342 319 246 329 144 3 1Barrie CMA Innisfil Springwater 148 480 177 061 187 013 197 059 5 4Sudbury CMA Whitefish Lake Wanapitei Reserve 155 601 158 258 160 770 164 689 1 0Kingston CMA 146 838 152 358 159 561 161 175 1 0 Parts of Quebec including Gatineau are included in the Ottawa CMA The population of the Ottawa CMA in both provinces is shown Ten largest municipalities by population 107 Municipality 2001 2006 2011 2016Toronto 2 481 494 2 503 281 2 615 060 2 731 571Ottawa 774 072 812 129 883 391 934 243Mississauga 612 925 668 549 713 443 721 599Brampton 325 428 433 806 523 911 593 638Hamilton 490 268 504 559 519 949 536 917London 336 539 352 395 366 151 383 822Markham 208 615 261 573 301 709 328 996Vaughan 182 022 238 866 288 301 306 233Kitchener 190 399 204 668 219 153 233 222Windsor 209 218 216 473 210 891 217 188Education EditMain article Education in Ontario 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 Stephen Lecce the Minister of Colleges and Universities is Ross Romano and the Minister of Labour Training and Skills Development Monte McNaughton Higher education Edit Main article Higher education in Ontario See also List of colleges in Ontario and List of universities in Ontario Higher education in Ontario includes post secondary 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 108 The minister is Merrilee Fullerton The ministry administers laws covering 22 public universities 109 24 public colleges 21 Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology CAATs and three Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning ITALs 110 17 privately funded religious universities 111 and over 500 private career colleges 112 The Canadian constitution provides each province with the responsibility for higher education and there is no corresponding national federal ministry of higher education 113 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 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 Culture EditSee also Category Works about Ontario Hollywood North Music of Ontario Southern Ontario Gothic Northern Ontario Culture and Franco Ontarians Culture Outdoor recreation is popular in Southern Ontario and the region is home to numerous cultural events and festivals There is no single regional dish in Southern Ontario but fish and wild game such as walleye and moose are popular Poutine a dish that originated in Quebec and is popular in Northern Ontario can also be found in the region In 2019 the government of Ontario passed legislation that established the Poet Laureate of Ontario 114 Songs and slogans Edit An Ontario licence plate with the slogan Yours to Discover at the bottom of the plate 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 115 apparently inspired by a tourism slogan Discover Ontario dating back to 1927 116 Plates with the French equivalent Tant a decouvrir were made available to the public beginning in May 2008 117 From 1988 to 1990 118 Ontario Incredible 119 gave Yours to Discover a brief respite A Place to Stand a Place to Grow is a song commissioned by the government of Ontario for its pavilion in Expo 67 and an unofficial anthem of the province 120 As a part of the Canada 150 celebrations in 2017 the provincial government released an updated rendition 120 In 2007 the provincial tourism agency commissioned a new song There s No Place Like This is featured in television advertising performed by Ontario artists including Molly Johnson Brian Byrne Keshia Chante 121 as well as Tomi Swick and Arkells Professional sports Edit Main article List of professional sports teams in Ontario The province has professional sports teams in baseball basketball Canadian football ice hockey lacrosse rugby league rugby union and soccer Club Sport League City StadiumAtletico Ottawa Soccer CPL Ottawa TD Place StadiumBelleville Senators Ice hockey AHL Belleville CAA ArenaForge FC Soccer CPL Hamilton Tim Hortons FieldGuelph Nighthawks Basketball CEBL Guelph Sleeman CentreHamilton Honey Badgers Basketball CEBL Hamilton FirstOntario CentreHamilton Tiger Cats Football CFL Hamilton Tim Hortons FieldKW Titans Basketball NBLC Kitchener Kitchener Memorial AuditoriumLondon Lightning Basketball NBLC London Budweiser GardensNiagara River Lions Basketball CEBL St Catharines Meridian CentreOttawa Blackjacks Basketball CEBL Ottawa TD Place ArenaOttawa Redblacks Football CFL Ottawa TD Place StadiumOttawa Senators Ice hockey NHL Ottawa Canadian Tire CentreOttawa Titans Baseball FL Ottawa Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton ParkRaptors 905 Basketball G League Mississauga Paramount Fine Foods CentreSudbury Five Basketball NBLC Greater Sudbury Sudbury Community ArenaToronto Argonauts Football CFL Toronto BMO FieldToronto Arrows Rugby union MLR Toronto York Lions StadiumToronto Blue Jays Baseball MLB Toronto Rogers CentreToronto FC Soccer MLS Toronto BMO FieldToronto FC II Soccer USL Toronto Lamport StadiumToronto Maple Leafs Ice hockey NHL Toronto Scotiabank ArenaToronto Marlies Ice hockey AHL Toronto Coca Cola ColiseumToronto Raptors Basketball NBA Toronto Scotiabank ArenaToronto Rock Lacrosse NLL Hamilton FirstOntario CentreToronto Wolfpack Rugby league NARL Toronto Lamport StadiumWindsor Express Basketball NBLC Windsor WFCU CentreYork United FC Soccer CPL Toronto York Lions StadiumNotable residents Edit Main article List of people from Ontario Museums Edit Main article List of museums in OntarioTransportation EditTransportation 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 Air travel Edit Thunder Bay International Airport is one of five international airports operating in Ontario Important airports in the province include Toronto Pearson International Airport which is the busiest airport in Canada 122 handling nearly 50 million passengers in 2018 123 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 Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport In addition to airports in Ottawa and Toronto the province also operates three other international airports the John C Munro Hamilton International Airport in Hamilton the Thunder Bay International Airport in Thunder Bay and the London International Airport in London John C Munro Hamilton International Airport serves as cargo hub reliever for Pearson and sometimes a hub for discount airlines 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 Remote and 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 by year round road or rail Railways Edit vteOntario passenger railLegendWhite River Canadianto VancouverO Brien Girdwood MoosoneeFranz Moose RiverLochalsh Coral RapidsMissanabie FraserdaleDalton CluteBolkow CochraneNicholson Musk Esher Rice LakeChapleau Copelands LandingDevon MalachiNemegos OttermereKinogama MinakiKormak ReddittSultan FarlaneWoman River CanyonRamsey Red Lake RoadRoberts RichanBiscotasing Sioux LookoutMetagama Savant LakeSheahan Flindt LandingPogamasing Allanwater BridgeStralak CollinsBenny ArmstrongCartier Mud RiverLevack FerlandLarchwood AudenChelmsford NakinaAzilda LonglacSudbury Caramat HillsportHornepayne Corridorto Quebec CityOba CornwallElsas AlexandriaFoleyet CasselmanGogama Ottawa Westree FallowfieldRuel Smiths FallsFelix BrockvilleMcKee s Camp GananoqueLaforest KingstonCapreol NapaneeSudbury Junction BellevilleParry Sound Trenton JunctionWashago CobourgOld Elm Port HopeStouffville Oshawa Mount Joy WhitbyMarkham AjaxCentennial Pickering Unionville Rouge HillMilliken Guildwood Agincourt Eglinton Kennedy Allandale Waterfront ScarboroughBarrie South Danforth Bradford East Gwillimbury Bloomington Newmarket GormleyAurora Richmond HillKing City Langstaff Maple Old CummerRutherford Oriole Downsview Park Union Station Kipling Bloor Dixie Weston CooksvilleEtobicoke North Erindale Streetsville Meadowvale Lisgar Milton Pearson Malton ExhibitionBramalea Mimico Brampton Long BranchMount Pleasant Port Credit Georgetown ClarksonActon Oakville Guelph Bronte Kitchener Appleby Burlington Stratford Aldershot Brantford St Marys Woodstock Ingersoll London HamiltonGlencoe West HarbourChatham Grimsby Windsor St Catharines Strathroy Niagara Falls Wyoming Sarnia Amtrak Maple Leafto New YorkOperator Via Rail GO Transit Union Pearson Express Ontario Northland Railway AmtrakVia 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 124 125 There are several city rail transit systems in the Province The Toronto Transit Commission operates subways as well as streetcars being one of the busiest streetcar systems in North America OC Transpo operates a light rail metro system in Ottawa 126 In addition Waterloo region operates a surface light rail system 127 Plans to build a light rail line is also underway in the Regional Municipality of Peel 128 129 Ontario Northland freight train crossing the Missinaibi River at Mattice Val Cote in Northern Ontario Roads Edit Main article Roads in Ontario Highway 400 in Seguin The roadway forms a part of the province s 400 series highways 400 series highways make up the primary vehicular network in the south of province and they connect at a number of points to border crossings to the United States and Quebec 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 400 130 131 Highway 401 being the busiest highway in North America Other provincial highways and regional roads inter connect the remainder of the province Waterways Edit See also Boat building industry in Ontario 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 Ontario s three largest ports are the Port of Hamilton Port of Thunder Bay and the Port of Windsor Ontario s only saltwater port is located in the town of Moosonee on James Bay See also Edit Canada portal Ontario portalOutline of Ontario Index of Ontario related articlesNotes Edit The following figure is taken from the province s Inclusive Definition of Francophones IDF which includes those whose mother tongue is French and those whose mother tongue is not French but have proficiency in the language and use French as the primary language at home Statistics Canada treats Norfolk County and Haldimand County as one single census division the County of Brant and City of Brantford are also treated as one single census division There would otherwise be 51 census divisions instead of the 49 official ones used by Statistics Canada References Edit Ontario Geographical Names Data Base Natural Resources Canada a b Population and dwelling counts Canada provinces and territories Statistics Canada February 9 2022 Archived from the original on February 9 2022 Retrieved February 9 2022 a b Land and freshwater area by province and territory Statistics Canada February 1 2005 Archived from the original on October 19 2012 Retrieved August 5 2012 Population estimates quarterly Statistics Canada June 14 2018 Archived from the original on June 19 2016 Retrieved April 12 2020 Definition of Ontarian Collins Online Dictionary HarperCollins Publishers Archived from the original on October 4 2013 Retrieved October 3 2013 About Ontario Ontario ca Queen s Printer for Ontario March 7 2019 Archived from the original on January 8 2020 Retrieved January 8 2020 Gross domestic product expenditure based by province and territory 2015 Statistics Canada November 9 2016 Archived from the original on September 19 2012 Retrieved January 26 2017 Sub national HDI Subnational HDI Global Data Lab Archived from the original on September 25 2021 Retrieved September 8 2021 Ontario Merriam Webster s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed New York New YorkMerriam Webster Inc 2003 ISBN 978 0 87779 809 5 Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada Finance Government of Ontario Ministry of Ontario Fact Sheet May 2016 Fin gov on ca Archived from the original on June 13 2016 Retrieved June 7 2016 Ontario is the largest province in the country by population Statistics Canada Archived from the original on June 10 2008 Retrieved January 5 2007 Population of census metropolitan areas 2001 Census boundaries Statistics Canada Archived from the original on July 24 2005 Retrieved January 5 2007 Canada United States International Boundary Commission 2006 St Lawrence River and Great Lakes PDF Presentation at 2006 IBRU Conference p 21 Durham University Archived PDF from the original on November 2 2012 Retrieved May 6 2014 Ontario Population Projections 2018 2046 Government of Ontario Ministry of Finance Archived from the original on March 28 2020 Retrieved April 12 2020 Marianne 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