Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario the largest to have passed such a resolution and the first to do so despite its sizable Franco-Ontarian population. Sault Ste. Marie has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfb") with cold, snowy winters and warm summers that are moderated to some extent by Lake Superior. Winters are cold but are milder than some inland places. Temperatures drop below 24 days per year. Summers are warm with a July high of and temperatures above occur 4 days per year. The average annual precipitation is , which is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year; February is the driest month, and
Sault Ste. Marie language resolution the controversy. The resolution was struck down by a court ruling in 1994, and ceased to have legal effect. In 2010, John Rowswell, a subsequent mayor of Sault Ste. Marie, apologized to French Canadians across the country for the resolution. Sault Ste. Marie was founded by French-speaking missionaries in 1623 but had become overwhelmingly English-speaking by the twentieth century. In response to a French-language education controversy which began in 1987 when a group of Franco-Ontarian families lobbied to have a new French school opened in the city, the Sault Alliance for the Preservation of English Language Rights (SAPELR) was formed