[someone123]

Another what if: what if the deportation of the Acadians never happened?

In 1755 there were around 14,000 Acadians in Nova Scotia and 11,500 were eventually deported. There were 20,000-30,000 Europeans in total in Nova Scotia back then (compared to 55,000 in New France, and extremely little European settlement farther west). Many of the Acadians who were deported died and much of their property was destroyed. Many Acadians who escaped the deportation moved to frontier areas of that time, like PEI and farther north in New Brunswick, or left the region entirely. The deported Acadians ended up in a bunch of places including Louisiana and Quebec.

The deportation itself was a somewhat strange event that might easily not have happened. A new British governor of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, decided on his own to execute his plan and the New England colonies helped. London didn't approve of the plan and it's not clear that earlier or later governors would have either (Nova Scotia's governor in the 1740's, Paul Mascarene, was a bilingual Huguenot). Lawrence had little understanding of Nova Scotia or the Acadians. He was mostly convinced that they were guaranteed supporters of France in the event of invasion. That was doubtful and France never invaded again anyway.

If the deportation hadn't happened I think the Maritimes would be more like 50/50 Francophone or more, and Halifax would have had a linguistic character closer to what Montreal is like today (based on the legacy of a large rural French-speaking population and an English-speaking urban elite). It's not clear if NB would have been more or less Francophone; maybe it would have been much more Francophone because there would have been fewer places for English-speaking Loyalists to move to. New Brunswick as a separate entity may never have existed at all. The Maritimes might have also developed a bit faster due to not having lost as much of their head start in demographics and wealth.