Why is Quebec the only mainly “French” province?
 

My view of Canada has always been dominated by French culture. My extended family who lives up there are all concentrated in the Montreal area and I haven’t been to any other provinces aside from Quebec up to this point. There’s also the idea that Canada advertises itself as a bilingual nation, with importance stressed on both English and French.


However, from what I gather culturally ( in media, this forum, etc), most of the provinces outside of Quebec are English-based. What’s the story behind that?

You do understand the response to this isn't simple or straight-forward.

France heavily colonized New France (Quebec) and then lost the war against the English who subsequently took basically the whole continent. They expelled most of the Acadians from Nova Scotia and Eastern New Brunswick, many of whom ended up in Louisiana and evolved into the Cajun (the adapted demonym from "Acadian") culture.

Quebec is the only province with the majority of its population being Francophone, however both Ontario and New Brunswick are heavily influenced by the French language and culture. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province, being about 34% French and 66% English, and out of Ontario's 15 million people, about 1.3 million identify as French Canadian, and around 700 000 speak French as their first language. While New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province, the country itself is officially bilingual at the federal level.

Additionally, Manitoba was settled earlier than the rest of the west of the country, initially by French settlers and fur traders. Many of these people led to the creation of the Metis community of Canada through genetic and cultural exchange with indigenous people. The population of the Metis community numbers about 700 000 mostly spread across the three Prairie Provinces. Louis Riel was a Metis from Winnipeg, founder of the province of Manitoba, and was the leader of two rebellions seeking independence (or at least autonomy) for Indigenous and Metis peoples. He was executed for treason, but is widely considered the provincial hero of Manitoba and is one of the most studied and storied individuals in Canadian history. In Winnipeg, the Francophone population is over 40 000. Despite significant demographic losses over the past three decades, it's still a fairly sizeable community.

Aside from those four provinces, there are smaller communities of Francophones across Alberta (81 000), British Columbia (71 000), Nova Scotia (35 000), and Saskatchewan (20 000). Even smaller communities in the rest of the provinces and territories, including remnants of the Acadians in Prince Edward Island (6 000) along with their countrymen in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Out of 38 million people in Canada, approximately 10 million speak French as their first language, which is why we are a bilingual country.



But of course, as mentioned above, there is no straight forward answer to your question. What I've provided here is an extremely basic overview based on my memory and ongoing studies of Canadian history and indigenous/metis ethnographies in university.

Quebec has always been the primary French-Canadian province (at least since well before Confederation) and over time Quebec has become proportionately less English-speaking while the rest of Canada has become proportionately less French-speaking.

Federal services are offered in both English and French in all of Canada but day-to-day life is really only bilingual in a few cities (Montreal being the primary example). Bilingualism is such a visible part of the country's modern brand though that I can see where the surprise comes from. The relative importance of the French language outside of Quebec varies by province but tends to be stronger in the Eastern half of the country, though not so much in Toronto or the surrounding area.

The British won.

[QUOTE=theman23;8828775]The British won.[/QUOTE

Which leaves only the question of the Quebec anomaly, although, ironically, the same explanation applies ...

This thread is gonna be like 20 posts answering this very Google-able question followed by 50 pages of vitriolic discussion about equalization, distinct culture and Bill 21. Mods get ready.

:previous:

Sadly, I think you are correct on this.

The Expulsion of the Acadians is why Quebec is Canada's only French province.

And also because the British won.

? It does...?

People have already touched upon the British colonial era a bit, but it's also worth mentioning that post-Confederation (that created "Canada" as we know and to which provinces were added progressively) all of the provinces except Quebec actively tried to suppress their French speaking populations in order to reduce the francophone proportion or keep it from flourishing.

The steps taken varied somewhat but in 9 of 10 (all except Quebec) there were bans on teaching kids in French at one point or another.

In many cases French schools had already been established but they were either closed or switched over to English.

All of the anglo majority provinces eventually loosened things up starting in the 1950s and 1960s, but for some of them it took constitutional changes driven by the federal government in the 1980s for them to finally open French schools.

Obviously this caused a lot of damage to francophone communities in Canada (outside Quebec) during the 20th century, and much of the population that normally would have grown up speaking and learning in French assimilated to English.

While demographics and politics prevented such measures from the provincial government in Quebec, where there always were French schools and services, the federal government also undermined French in Quebec for most of the 20th century, by imposing English in many spheres that it controlled even in Quebec, and perhaps most significantly by streaming almost all of the immigrants (a federally controlled process) into the minority English community of Quebec and its language and culture, even if the place was mostly French-speaking. The feds made it difficult for French-speaking people from around the world to move to Quebec, and also told prospective Canadians who moved here to learn English and NOT French if they wanted to be good citizens of their new country.

In terms of how "French" the anglo provinces would be today had their francophone populations been given a fair shake at flourishing (through education and services in their own language, and their fair share of immigrants - a huge part of population growth in this country), certainly in provinces like Manitoba and Ontario the French speaking population share would be quite a bit larger today. Perhaps as much as 15% in Ontario and maybe as much as 25% in Manitoba. As opposed to barely 5% in both provinces in 2020.

New Brunswick would probably be about the same (about 1/3 francophone today), as owing to a high geographic concentration of a fairly large francophone population, the province had to contend with that politically and started to play nice with them a lot earlier in the 20th century than they did in other parts of Canada.

Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia are also about 5% francophone today. They might be 15-20% francophone today in the absence of anti-francophone measures in the 20th century.

2 reasons, the British won the 7 years war, and France sold the majority of it NA territory to the Americans in the Louisiana Purchase. After that, Quebec became the only predominant french speaking territory on the continent.

That was part of the 7 years war.

Yeah.

Unless the OP doesn’t know how to operate a computer and is having his grandkids post messages for him, it’s a pretty damn stupid question to ask.

People aren't allowed to be curious?

Plus, he's American. He doesn't care about any hang-ups Canadians might have about such things.

This is a great addition to the topic/discussion that I don't think gets nearly enough attention. Especially for the Prairie populations where many Francophones were Metis, who had not only their French but Indigenous identities literally beaten out of them.

As a tour guide I've learned that most people outside of Canada think we are this haven of utopian peace and tranquility. On my tours I give people a bit of the history behind the cultural genocide and... well actual genocide committed against the First Nations and Metis, but thinking I should probably add in a bit about the cultural genocide committed against non-Quebecois Francophones across what is now "Anglo Canada".

BTW Chad, I forgot to mention it but I thought your post on here was really good too - you have an impressive grasp of our country's history. I did not know that side of you.

Thanks haha. Most people on here somehow think they know a lot about me, certainly enough for many to regularly insult me, but none really know shit all about me which is why I just laugh and increase my actions that annoy them every time. I appreciate the recognition though man :tup:

(Federal) governmentally, I think we can say that it does.

It's a shame French isn't more wide spoken in other provinces. I have made it a point to speak French anytime I go to government offices here in Manitoba. I really need to practice it more. It's nice there are also French speaking communities near by to be able to hear and speak French in. I wish there were more.


The expulsion of the Acadians from the Maritimes is one the saddest episodes in Canadian history.