In the short-form questionnaire, the only question of a linguistic nature asks the respondent which language the person first learned and still speaks. It does not take official languages into account. The questions in the long-form questionnaire, however, asked about the first official language spoken, the FOLS. Thus, if in Ontario the first official language of 16% of the population is French, that means that we are including immigrants from Morocco and various parts of Africa, France or elsewhere, as their first official language is French. This allows us to determine how to designate the offices. Currently, the short-form questionnaire does not allow this to be done. However the regulations state that this exercise must be based on the census and not on a national questionnaire sent out to households.
On July 27th, 2010. See this statement in context.