Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: What is the official language of Ontario?
On January 29, 1990, Sault Ste. Marie became a flashpoint in the Meech Lake Accord constitutional debate when council passed a resolution declaring English as the city's official language and the sole language for provision of municipal services. The city had a sizable French-speaking population and these residents objected strongly to the council's action. The Sault Ste. Marie language resolution was not the first of its kind in Ontario, but the municipality was the largest to have passed such a resolution and the first to do so despite its sizable Franco-Ontarian population.
The Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. The temperate and fertile Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Valley in the south is part of the Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests ecoregion where the forest has now been largely replaced by agriculture, industrial and urban development. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment. The Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the surface area of the province; conversely Southern Ontario contains 94 percent of the population.
Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India. It is one of the official languages of the union territory of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore. Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala. It was once given nominal official status in the Indian state of Haryana, purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab, though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi, in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil medium. The establishments of Tamil medium schools have been currently in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by the Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil is taught in Canada for the local Tamil minority populations and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada. Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as a subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion.
This list of place names in Canada of Indigenous origin contains Canadian places whose names originate from the words of the First Nations, Métis, or Inuit, collectively referred to as Indigenous peoples. When possible the original word or phrase used by Indigenous peoples is included, along with its generally believed meaning. Names listed are only those used in English or French, as many places have alternate names in the local native languages, e.g. Alkali Lake, British Columbia is "Esket" in the Shuswap language; Lytton, British Columbia is "Camchin" in the Thompson language (often used in English however, as Kumsheen).
Southern Ontario has a very different climate from the rest of the country. It is the only area of Canada that has Carolinian forest. Many trees, plants, and wildlife in Southern Ontario are not found anywhere else in Canada. Some rare trees to Canada in this region include the tulip tree, pawpaw fruit tree and the cucumber tree. The Carolinian forests of Southern Ontario have in large part been destroyed by development sprawl. Very few original growth areas remain.
Many respondents may have misunderstood the question and the numerous responses for "Canadian" does not give an accurate figure for numerous groups, particularly those of British Isles origins. Scottish-Canadians are the 3rd biggest ethnic group in Canada. Scottish culture has particularly thrived in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia (Latin for "New Scotland"). There, in Cape Breton, where both lowland and highland Scots settled in large numbers, Canadian Gaelic is still spoken by a small number of residents. Cape Breton is the home of the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts. Glengarry County in present-day Eastern Ontario is a historic county that was set up as a settlement for Highland Scots, where many from the Highlands settled to preserve their culture in result of the Highland Clearances. Gaelic was the native language of the community since its settlement in the 18th century although the number of speakers decreased since as a result of English migration. As of the modern 21st century, there are still a few Gaelic speakers in the community.
The province’s forest industry is supported mainly by the Northern Ontario boreal forest. These are the expansive and renewable resources that are drawn upon for the creation of value-added products. The geographical area covers 690,000 square kilometers which is roughly 17% of all Canadian forests as well as 2% of the world’s forests. It is estimated that the Ontario landscape is covered by roughly 85 billion trees. The forest industry in Ontario brings in about $10.8 billion in revenue per year. Sixty percent of Ontario’s forest industry is recognized as value-added wood products. In 2005, Ontario’s manufacturing of cabinets and furniture represented $2.2 billion.
The name "Canada" is now generally accepted as originating from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word or , meaning "village" or "settlement". Related translations include "land" or "town", with subsequent terminologies meaning "cluster of dwellings" or "collection of huts". This explanation is historically documented in Jacques Cartier's "Bref récit et succincte narration de la navigation faite en MDXXXV et MDXXXVI".
The Ottawa River drainage basin is the drainage basin in northern North America where surface water empties into the Ottawa River and adjoining waters. Spanning an area of about , it is the 12th largest drainage basin in Canada, occupying the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It accounts for about 11% of the total Saint Lawrence River drainage area.
According to the 2016 census, the country's largest self-reported ethnic origin is Canadian (accounting for 32% of the population), followed by English (18.3%), Scottish (13.9%), French (13.6%), Irish (13.4%), German (9.6%), Chinese (5.1%), Italian (4.6%), First Nations (4.4%), Indian (4.0%), and Ukrainian (3.9%). There are 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands, encompassing a total of 1,525,565 people. Canada's indigenous population is growing at almost twice the national rate, and four percent of Canada's population claimed an indigenous identity in 2006. Another 22.3 percent of the population belonged to a non-indigenous visible minority. In 2016, the largest visible minority groups were South Asian (5.6%), Chinese (5.1%) and Black (3.5%). Between 2011 and 2016, the visible minority population rose by 18.4 percent. In 1961, less than two percent of Canada's population (about 300,000 people) were members of visible minority groups. Indigenous peoples are not considered a visible minority under the Employment Equity Act, and this is the definition that Statistics Canada also uses.
Southwestern Ontario and a narrow strip along the coast of the Saint Lawrence River are in the Mixedwood Plains, a fertile and productive ecozone that is typically flat with rolling hills, and was once covered by forest before its use for agriculture, and later urbanization, resulted in deforestation of vast swaths of the area. To its north is the Boreal Shield, the largest provincial ecozone, extending from south-central Ontario to cover most of northern Ontario, where it abuts the Hudson Plains. The Northwestern Ontario portion of this area is part of the Midwestern Canadian Shield forests ecoregion of boreal forest that spreads west through Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The plains that cover the heartland of Ontario are a transitional ecozone characterized by boreal features in the south and tundra landscapes in the north. This extends the entire range of the northern coast of Ontario with Hudson Bay and James Bay, at which numerous wetlands act as staging and nesting grounds for migratory birds. The waters of the two bays are in the Arctic Archipelago Marine ecozone, forming its southern, subarctic extent.
Approximately 242 languages are spoken in the country, but only four have the status of national languages: Kituba ("Kikongo ya leta"), Lingala, Tshiluba, and Swahili. Although some people speak these regional, or trade languages as first languages, most of the population speak them as a second language after their own tribal language. Lingala was the official language of the colonial army, the "Force Publique", under Belgian colonial rule, and remains to this day the predominant language in the armed forces. Since the recent rebellions, a good part of the army in the East also uses Swahili where it is prevalent.
Even though the English language is not included in the Eighth Schedule (as it is a foreign language), it is one of the official languages of the Union of India.
Of the 22 official languages, 15 are Indic, four are Dravidian, two are Tibeto-Burman, and one is Munda.
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people of Canada and the United States. They are one of the largest indigenous peoples north of the Rio Grande. In Canada, they are the second-largest First Nations population, surpassed only by the Cree. In the United States, they have the fifth-largest population among Native American peoples, surpassed in number only by the Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw and Sioux.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the French language established itself permanently in the Americas. There is an academic debate about how fluent in French the colonists of New France were. While less than 15% of colonists (25% of the women – chiefly "filles du roi" – and 5% of the men) were from the region of Paris and presumably spoke French, most of the rest came from north-western and western regions of France where regular French was not the primary native language. It is not clearly known how many among those colonists understood French as a second language, and how many among them – who, in overwhelming majority, natively spoke an oïl language – could understand, and be understood by, those who speak French thanks to interlinguistic similarity. In any case, a linguistic unification of all the groups coming from France happened (either in France, on the ships, or in Canada) such that, according to many sources, the then "Canadiens" were all speaking French (King's French) natively by the end of the 17th century, well before the unification was complete in France. Canada's reputation was to speak as good French as Paris did. Today, French is the language of about 10 million people (not counting French-based creoles, which are also spoken by about 10 million people) in the Americas.
Canadian Gaelic dialects of Scottish Gaelic are still spoken by Gaels in other parts of Atlantic Canada, primarily on Cape Breton Island and adjacent areas of Nova Scotia. In 2011, there were 1,275 Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia, and 300 residents of the province considered a Gaelic language to be their "mother tongue".
Canada itself is a name derived from a Laurentian Iroquois word meaning "village" (c.f. Mohawk "kaná:ta’"). See Canada's name for more details. Aboriginal names are widespread in Canada - for a full listing see List of place names in Canada of aboriginal origin. Those listed here are only well-known, important or otherwise notable places.NB Too many settlements, lakes, rivers, mountains and other items in British Columbia have indiegenous names for all of them to be included here. Only major or relatively notable items are listed.
The following table lists the names of India in its official languages. The sole official language of India is Hindi in Devanagari script as per Article 343 of the Indian constitution and there is no national language for the country. English has the status of a "subsidiary official language". The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages, which have been referred to as "scheduled" languages and given recognition, status, and official encouragement.
The name "Canada" comes from the word meaning "village" or "settlement" in the Saint-Lawrence Iroquoian language spoken by the inhabitants of Stadacona and the neighbouring region near present-day Quebec City in the 16th century. Another contemporary meaning was "land." Jacques Cartier was first to use the word "Canada" to refer not only to the village of Stadacona, but also to the neighbouring region and to the Saint-Lawrence River.
Cantonese is the "de facto" official language of Hong Kong (along with English) and Macau (along with Portuguese), though legally the official language is just "Chinese".
It is the oral language of instruction in Chinese schools in Hong Kong and Macau, and is used extensively in Cantonese-speaking households. Cantonese-language media (Hong Kong films, television serials, and Cantopop), isolation from the other regions of China, local identity, and the non-Mandarin speaking Cantonese diaspora in Hong Kong and abroad give the language a unique identity. Colloquial Hong Kong Cantonese often incorporates English words due to historical British influences.
Until the Twenty-first Amendment of the Constitution of India in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Meitei and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 18. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, as of 1 December 2007, lists 22 languages, which are given in the table below together with the speaking population and the regions where they are used. 
The individual states, the borders of most of which are or were drawn on socio-linguistic lines, can legislate their own official languages, depending on their linguistic demographics. The official languages chosen reflect the predominant as well as politically significant languages spoken in that state. Certain states having a linguistically defined territory may have only the predominant language in that state as its official language, examples being Karnataka and Gujarat, which have Kannada and Gujarati as their sole official language respectively. Telangana, with a sizeable Urdu-speaking Muslim population, has two languages, Telugu and Urdu, as its official languages.
In order for an area to obtain designation, Francophones must make up at least 10% of its population, and urban centres must have at least 5,000 francophones. Previous to 2009, the definition of a francophone in Ontario included only native French speakers. This definition was broadened by the Government of Ontario in June 2009 "to better reflect the changing face and diversity of Ontario's Francophone communities." The new Inclusive Definition of Francophones (IDF) now includes allophones, "those whose mother tongue is neither French nor English but have particular knowledge of French as an official language and use French at home, including many recent immigrants to Ontario for whom French is the language of integration."
Brampton was designated as the province's 24th bilingual service centre in 2004, and the designation officially came into effect in March 2007. Kingston was designated as the 25th bilingual service centre in May 2006, and French services officially came into effect in 2009.
Since 1968, French has been one of Canada's two official languages. It is the sole official language of Quebec and one of the official languages of New Brunswick, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The province of Ontario has no official languages defined in law, although the provincial government provides French language services in many parts of the province under the French Language Services Act.
The principal language of Ontario is English, the province's de facto official language, which is spoken natively by about 70% of the province's population, according to the 2011 census. There is also a French-speaking population concentrated in the northeastern, eastern, and extreme Southern parts of the province, where under the "French Language Services Act", provincial government services are required to be available in French if at least 10% of a designated area's population report French as their native language. Roughly 4% of Ontarians speak French as their mother tongue, and 11% are bilingual, speaking both English and French, according to the 2011 census. Other languages spoken by residents include Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Malayalam, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Sinhalese, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Tibetan, Urdu and Vietnamese.
The French language has historically played a significant role in North America and now retains a distinctive presence in some regions. Canada is officially bilingual. French is the official language of the Province of Quebec, where 95% of the people speak it as either their first or second language, and it is co-official with English in the Province of New Brunswick. Other French-speaking locales include the Province of Ontario (the official language is English, but there are an estimated 600,000 Franco-Ontarians), the Province of Manitoba (co-official as "de jure" with English), the French West Indies and Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, as well as the US state of Louisiana, where French is also an official language. Haiti is included with this group based on historical association but Haitians speak both Creole and French. Similarly, French and French Antillean Creole is spoken in Saint Lucia and the Commonwealth of Dominica alongside English.