“The language that I speak has got a poor status or standing in Ontario. Not only the language, it’s also the culture,” said Ms. Truax, 64. “Because of that, here are many small daily battles to be won if I want to live en français.”

Many of those battles in Ontario have been around education. Ms. Truax is from the first generation of francophone Ontarians who were able to attend all of high school in French. The now-abandoned plan to build a French-language university in Toronto, which was created by the previous Liberal government, was widely seen as the final step in a campaign dating back to 1890.

The province currently has three bilingual universities, including Laurentian, although exactly what that means varies both by field of study and campus.

Marie-Pierre Héroux, a third-year Canadian history major at Laurentian, who is from a French-speaking farm town east of Ottawa, attends all of her classes in French, something that is impossible for students in sciences. But English dominates life at her residence and around campus.

After Mr. Ford announced the cuts, Ms. Héroux said she was in tears.

“I’m in history, right, so I learned about all the battles that had been fought,” she said. “I never thought I was going to live one like that in my life.”

Ms. Héroux advertises her passion as she walks around campus. A piece of green felt and a piece of white felt, the colors of Franco Ontario, are pinned to the front of her jacket.