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. It is surrounded by over 300 million English speakers in the US and the rest of Canada, and yet it manages to keep its unique culture and language.

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. (Vermont and New York State) 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 Québec’s area lies within the Canadian Shield, a large part of which was historically referred to as the Ungava Region. At the time of Confederation in 1867, the Province of Quebec consisted of a strip of land only a few miles wide running along the St. Lawrence River where the first settlers had farmed. In 1912, a major portion of the Canadian Ungava region, previously part of the Northwest Territories was allocated by the Parliament of Canada to be a component of Quebec Province. 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.

This new region in northern Quebec has extremely rich 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 and is home to Inuit communities.

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.

Inhabitants of Quebec are called Quebecers or Quebeckers; the term Québécois (pronounced "keh-bek-wah") refers to the French-descended people of Quebec.

History of Quebec

Quebec was inhabited by a range of First Nations before the arrival of the French, and still is today - the Inuit in Nunavik, the Cree in the coniferous forests, the Huron and Iroquois (Mohawks) in the river valley, and the Mi'kmaq in the east, to name the most prominent peoples.

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 forbid 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 allied themselves with the Huron against the Iroquois, 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 that was viewed as a vast, frozen wasteland of little importance to the French Empire. Despite being in full control of Quebec and its French speaking residents, the new British government passed the Quebec Act in 1774, allowing the colony to retain its language and religion. Quebec also was allowed to keep a legal system different from the other provinces that was based on civil law from the French civil code rather than on English Common law. In addition, Quebec maintained its semifeudal system and customs. This act of tolerance was one of the grievances listed by the Americans in the Declaration of Independence.

Built in 1779, the first public library in Canada was the Quebec Library, made possible by the efforts of the then British governor, Sir Frederick Haldimand. After Loyalists fleeing from the American Revolution settled in Quebec, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the region at the Ottawa River, creating Upper Canada (now Ontario) and Lower Canada (now Quebec). The first elected legislature was created in the same year.

Partisans in both Upper and Lower Canada revolted against the British Empire in 1837; in Quebec, the revolt was led by Louis-Joseph Papineau and the Patriotes. The rebellions were crushed, but they achieved their goal when Lord Durham's report recommended responsible government for the colonies. This was instituted in 1849, under the guidance of Robert Baldwin from Upper Canada and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine of Lower Canada.

Lord Durham's report recommended that the French-Canadians be assimilated, and an attempt at this was made by merging the Canadas into the Province of Canada in 1841; what is now Quebec became Canada East. This was unstable, however, and when the Province of Canada joined with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Confederation (1867), it divided into Ontario and Quebec once more.

20th Century 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. However, attempts to curtail Roman Catholic control over education in Manitoba and Ontario increased the Quebecois' feeling of isolation, but by the 1960's, Quebec broke away from the control of the Catholic Church and in the 1990's, amended its schoolboards from religion based to language based, unlike the Province of Ontario where Catholic schools are still guaranteed. French Canadians stood firmly opposed to conscription in the First World War being fought in France (see the Vimy Ridge Memorial in France) and again in World War II when France was occupied by the Nazis and its citizens were being tortured, starved and murdered.

Quebec had been strongly Catholic throughout its history; this came to a head in the 1950s under the Union Nationale government of Maurice Duplessis, who maintained 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. However, after the party was voted out of office, under the Liberal government led by Premier Jean Lesage, the power of the church fell away. Quebec moved towards a very progressive society in the 1960s, a social sea-change called the Quiet Revolution (Révolution tranquille). It has maintained its progressive nature to this day, having been the first province to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, one of the first to permit civil unions and adoption for gays and lesbians, and pushing for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.

Nationalist feelings flowered into sovereignism in the 1960s. The sovereignist movement burst onto the scene with the October Crisis of 1970, when a terrorist group, the Front du Libération du Québec, kidnapped a British diplomat, James Cross, and the Quebec minister of labour, Pierre Laporte. Cross was released, but Laporte was brutally murdered. Although later it was learned that the FLQ were fringe extremists, Prime Minister Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act, suspension of civil liberties, military intervention in Montreal, and arrest of dissidents promoted grievances in parts of the general population. Nonetheless, the FLQ extremeists had broad support within the mainstream separatist party. On December 7, 1981, in an interview to Radio-Quebec, Quebec Premier René Lévesque said that he was astounded by the fact that convicted terrorist Jacques Rose had received a standing ovation at the Parti Québécois convention of early December. René Lévesque added that he could not defend the radical proposals that had come out of the convention.

1970 also saw the formation of the sovereignist Parti Québécois under René Lévesque. This party won the 1976 provincial elections and instituted a series of laws discouraging the use of English and promoting the use of French. (French had been made the sole official language in 1974.) The declaration and enforcement by the Government of Quebec of French as the sole language of the Province, violated the Constitution of Canada and was declared as illegal by the Supreme Court of Canada. However, the Federal Government in Ottawa, responsible for protecting the rights of all citizens, has never fulfilled its obligation to overrule the Government of Quebec's unconstitutional action. In 1978, Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa used the Notwithstanding Clause contained in the 1982 Constitution to annul the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling. These various actions were blamed for a massive emigration of English speakers and their companies, mainly to Ontario.

In 1980, Lévesque's plan for an independent Quebec, called sovereignty-association, was rejected by voters in a referendum. However, the PQ was reelected in 1981, and rejected the newly repatriated constitution in 1982. From 1985 to 1994, the federalist Parti libéral du Québec governed under Robert Bourassa and Daniel Johnson; progress on the constitutional issue resulted in the Meech Lake Accord in 1987, but it collapsed in 1990. Another constitutional deal, the Charlottetown Accord, was rejected by countrywide referendum in 1992.

The Parti Quebecois reentered office in 1994 under 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, for which the federal Liberal party under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien came under sharp criticism.

Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau denounced the ethnic vote for the separatiusts loss, then, under media pressure for his racist remarks, announced his resignation and was replaced by the head of the federal Bloc Québécois, Lucien Bouchard. Under Bouchard, Quebec's status as a distinct society was recognized by Parliament, and was granted a veto over constitutional amendments. Since then, support for secession has shrunk to some 40%; moreover, nearly 70% of the population are simply not interested in holding a referendum, be they federalist or sovereignist. The PQ, currently led by Premier Bernard Landry, has seen its support drop critically, especially relative to the popularity of a new right-wing party, the Action Démocratique under Mario Dumont.

At this point, the national question is on the back burner. On a day-to-day basis, Quebecers, especially in Montreal, live in a relatively stable state of cultural equipoise. Much more pressing political concerns include the state of education and the health-care system. Quebec City hosted the Summit of the Americas in April 2001, attracting huge anti-globalization protests with activists from everywhere in the province and the rest of the hemisphere.

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 official holiday, now called the Fête nationale du Québec.

External link: Government of Quebec