The Pollcast: The fight for the Franco-Ontarian vote

The polls suggest that Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives are on track to win a big majority government in Ontario's provincial election in June. It will be tough for Premier Kathleen Wynne to secure re-election but the Liberals might also struggle to avoid being overtaken by the New Democrats.

Some of the seats that the Liberals and NDP will be banking on are in two regions of the province with high concentrations of Franco-Ontarian voters. What role could they play in the June 7 vote?

• Podcasts: Subscribe to the CBCPollcast

Just four per cent of Ontarians report French as their mother tongue, but there areridings in Ontario with significant Franco-Ontarian populations. Two are majority francophone: GlengarryPrescottRussell (59 per cent) in Eastern Ontario and MushkegowukJames Bay (60 per cent) in Northern Ontario.

Other ridings have significant populations reporting French as their mother tongue, including StormontDundasSouth Glengarry, OttawaOrlans and OttawaVanierin Eastern Ontario, and Nickel Belt, Timmins, Sudbury, Nipissing, TimiskamingCochrane and AlgomaManitoulin in Northern Ontario.

But there are differences in the political landscapes in the two corners of the province. In the North, the contests are primarily between New Democrats and Liberals,with the NDP having a lock on some of the seats. The NDP has won Nickel Belt, for instance, in every provincial election since 1971.

In Eastern Ontario, the Liberals' main rivals in francophone ridings are Progressive Conservative candidates. But here again, the Liberals have been hard to dislodge they haven't been beaten in OttawaVanierfor nearly 50 years and have heldGlengarryPrescottRussell since 1981.

Outreach to Franco-Ontarians varies from party to party. The PCs under the bilingual Patrick Brown made significant efforts to appeal to francophones efforts that may dissipateunder the unilingual Ford. The NDPlaunched its platform without having a French-language version ready. And last year, the Liberals set up a ministry for francophone affairs.

Franco-Ontarians might not make up an election-deciding voting bloc in the June provincial election. But in a few ridings, they could make the difference.

On this week's episode of the Pollcast, Claudine Brul, Radio-Canada's provincial affairs reporter in Toronto, discusses the latest developments in Ontario's pre-campaign and the role that Franco-Ontarians could play in the upcoming election.

Also on the show, the CBC's Aaron Wherry discusses the recent testimony by AggregateIQ executives on Parliament Hill and how political parties are grappling with data privacy, as well as their own refusal to submit themselves to Canada's privacy laws.

And Nick Gamache and host ric Grenierchat about this past weekend's Liberal policy convention, a looming trade deadline, the upcoming Progressive Conservative leadership vote in Newfoundland and Labrador and the resignation of a Liberal MP and the byelection that will follow.

Listen to the full discussion above or subscribe to the CBCPollcast here and listen to past episodes.

Follow ric Grenier, Nick Gamache, Claudine Brul and Aaron Wherryon Twitter.