- This article is about the province of Quebec. For the capital city of that province, see Quebec City.
 | |
| Motto: Je me souviens (I remember) | |
| Capital Largest city | Quebec City Montreal |
| Area - Total - % fresh water | 2nd largest (1st lgst prov.) 1 542 056 km² 11,5% |
| Population
- Density | Ranked 2nd
5,43/km² |
| Admittance into Confederation
- Order |
1 |
| Time zone | UTC -5 |
| Postal information
| QC G, H, J |
|
House seats Senate seats |
|
| Premier | Bernard Landry (Parti Quebecois) |
| Lieutenant-Governor | Lise Thibault |
| Government of Quebec | |
Quebec (pronounced "keh-BECK"; French: le Québec) is a Canadian province with a population of 7,410,504 (Statistics Canada, 2001), primarily speakers of the French language making up the bulk of the Francophone population in North America. The capital is Quebec City and the largest city, the metropole is Montreal.
Geography of Quebec
Quebec is located in eastern Canada, bordered by Ontario and Hudson Bay to the west, Atlantic Canada to the east, the U.S. (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York States) to the south, and the Arctic Ocean to the north.
The province, Canada's largest, occupies a vast territory (six times the size of France), most of which is very sparsely populated. More than 90 percent of Quebec's area lies within the Canadian Shield, a large part of which was historically referred to as the Ungava Region. This vast and virtually uninhabited northern region created the massive Province of Quebec as seen today. This huge new addition to Quebec bordered James Bay and is where the Province's three largest hydro-electric projects would eventually be built on the La Grande River.
The territory of Quebec is extremely rich in resources in its coniferous forests, lakes, and rivers—pulp and paper, lumber, and hydroelectricity are some of the province's most important industries. The extreme north of the province, called Nunavik, is subarctic or arctic and is home to the Inuit nation.
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The most populated region is the Saint Lawrence River Valley in the south, where the capital, Quebec City, and the largest city, Montreal, are situated. North of Montreal are the Laurentians, a range of ancient mountains, and to the south, the Appalachian Mountains extends into the Eastern Townships. The Gaspé Peninsula juts into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the east. The Saint Lawrence River Valley is a fertile agricultural region, producing dairy products, fruit, vegetables, maple sugar (Quebec is the world's largest producer), and livestock.
Citizens of Quebec are called Québécois (pronounced "keh-bek-wah") or Quebecers in English.
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History of Quebec
Quebec was inhabited by a range of First Nations before the arrival of the French, and still is today—the Quebec government recognizes 11 first nations on its territory. The Mohawks, the Montagnais, the Cris, the Inuits, the Algonquins, the Atikameks, the Micmacs, the Hurons-Wendat, the Abenaquis, and the Naskapis.
The first European explorer of Quebec was the Frenchman Jacques Cartier, who planted a cross in the Gaspé in 1534 and sailed into the Saint Lawrence in 1535. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City in 1608; it would become the nucleus of New France and the origin of French exploration of North America. After 1627 King Louis XIII of France forbade settlement by anyone in Quebec other than Roman Catholics, ensuring that welfare and education was kept firmly in the hands of the church. "New France" became a royal colony in 1663 under Louis XIV and the intendant Jean Talon.
The French colonists, now calling themselves Canadiens, allied themselves with the Huron Indians against the Iroquois Indians, who were allied to the English. The wars between England and France in Europe and North America came to a head in 1759 when the English general James Wolfe defeated Louis-Joseph de Montcalm at the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City.
Great Britain acquired "New France" at the Treaty of Paris in 1763 when King Louis XV of France ands his advisors chose to keep the territory of Guadeloupe for its valuable sugar crops instead of Quebec which was viewed as a vast, frozen wasteland of little importance to the French Empire. Following the Treaty, the British crown passed the Quebec Act in 1774, restoring the French Napoleonic Code but keeping the British criminal law. During the American Revolution, Montreal city is taken and the revolutionaries attempt to rally the Canadiens to their cause. The Canadiens remain mostly neutral in the conflit, following the edicts of the Roman Catholic Church.
After the independence of the Americans, many Loyalists settled in Quebec. The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the former region of France at the Ottawa River, creating Upper Canada (now Ontario) and Lower Canada (now Quebec).
An armed conflict in Upper and Lower Canada occurred in 1837; the rebellion is as a result of the demands of the Patriot Party led by Louis-Joseph Papineau. The rebellion was put down and the the report of Lord Durham, sent to investigate the uprising, recommended the uniting of both Canadas and installing one government to be responsible for the colonial areas. The Union Act is passed by the British Parliament and the new jointly run government is instituted in 1849, under Robert Baldwin from Upper Canada and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine of Lower Canada. This union ultimately led to the Province of Canada joining with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to create the Canadian Confederation in 1867 which divided the Province of Canada into Ontario and Quebec once again.
Recent Political History
When Quebec became one of the four founding provinces of Confederation, guarantees for the maintenance of its language, culture, and religion were specifically written into the Constitution. English and French were made the official languages of all Canada and dual school systems were established based on religion. Under the Constitution, the Provinces had control of education and the Protestants and Roman Catholics ran separate school systems in Quebec until the 1990s when secularization of schools took place.
Under the Union Nationale government of Maurice Duplessis, the Roman Catholic Church was allowed to maintain religious control over social services such as schools and hospitals. In return, the clergy used its influence to exhort voters to stay with the conservative government, who also took firm stands against social reform and unionism. Non-Catholic immigrants were not allowed to attend French schools, resulting in an immigrant population speaking and identifying itself with the English in Quebec. The Catholic Church urged the French speaking citizens of Quebec to isolate themselves from the rapidly expanding business community of the time. Consequently, English speaking entrepreneurs seized the opportunity and as a result, the French in Quebec were left out of mainstream North American society for years. It was not until the late 1970s that the French universities in Quebec offered an MBA program.
In 1960, under a new Liberal party government led by Premier Jean Lesage, the power of the church quickly disappeared. Despite the era often being referred to as the Quiet Revolution, Quebec entered a turbulent era in the 1960s. The changes were so quick and so radical, that the Liberal goverment was voted out in 1965 and the Union Nationale party was put back in power.
During the 1960s, a terrorist group known as the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ), seeking independence for Quebec from Canada, launched a decade of bombings, violence, and murder. Their activities culminated in events referred to as the October Crisis when the British Trade commissioner to Canada was kidnapped along with the Vice-Premier of the Province who was murdered a few days later.
A non-violent Quebec independence and sovereignty movement slowly took form in the 1970s. The Parti Québécois of René Lévesque successfully united the pro-separatist factions in Quebec, including a large segment of extremists. With 41% of the popular vote, this party took power after the 1976 provincial election, and instituted a series of laws restricting the use of any language other than French. Some of these were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.
In 1980, Premier Lévesque's plan for an independent Quebec, called sovereignty-association, was rejected by voters in a referendum. The Candian government repatriated the constitution in 1982 without the approval of Quebec. From 1985 to 1994, the federalist Parti libéral du Québec governed under Robert Bourassa and Daniel Johnson, Jr.; progress on the constitutional issue resulted in the Meech Lake Accord in 1987, but it collapsed in 1990. Another constitutional deal, the Charlottetown Accord, which sought to resolve a long list of unrelated issues at the same time as it resolved the nation's relationship with Québec, was rejected by countrywide referendum in 1992.
The Parti Québécois was re-elected to office in 1994 led by Jacques Parizeau, and held another referendum on sovereignty. On October 30, 1995, the measure was rejected by an extremely slim margin, less than one percent. The federal Liberal Party under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien came under sharp criticism for mishandling the "no" side of the referendum campaign.
Parizeau resigned and was replaced by the head of the federal Bloc Québécois, Lucien Bouchard. Under Bouchard, the sovereignist option was pushed aside, as it didn't seem possible to gather "winning conditions".
At this point, the national question is still not resolved. For some the fight for Quebec independence is still very important to this day. Quebec City hosted the Summit of the Americas in April 2001, attracting huge anti-globalization protests with activists from everywhere in the Americas.
Provincial Symbols
The motto of Quebec is Je me souviens (I remember), which was carved into the National Assembly building façade in Quebec City.
The emblem of Quebec is the fleur-de-lis, usually white on a blue background, as in the provincial flag (above), called the Fleurdelisé which is the symbol of the Monarchy of France.
The provincial flower of Quebec is the blue flag iris. It was formerly the Madonna lily, to recall the fleur de lis, but has been changed to the iris which is native to Quebec.
The provincial bird of Quebec is the snowy owl.
The patron saint of Quebec is Saint John the Baptist. La Saint-Jean-Baptiste, June 24, is the Quebec "national" holiday, now called the Fête nationale du Québec.
See also:
External links
| Canada | ||||
| Alberta | B.C. | Manitoba | New Brunswick | Nfld.-Lab. |
| Nova Scotia | Ontario | P.E.I. | Quebec | Saskatchewan |
| N.W.T. | Nunavut | Yukon | ||