Québec

Québec is the most culturally distinct subregion in all of North America (Figure 2.41). For more than 300 years, a substantial portion of the population has been French-speaking. Today, French Canadians are in the majority in Québec Province and are struggling to resolve Québec’s relationship with the rest of Canada.

FIGURE 2.41 The Québec subregion. 2.41a Courtesy David Boily/AFP/Getty Images

Origins of French Settlement

In the seventeenth century, France encouraged its citizens to settle in Canada. By 1760, there were 65,000 French settlers in Canada. Most lived along the St. Lawrence River, which linked the Great Lakes (and the interior of the continent) to the world ocean and global trade. The settlers lived on long, narrow strips of land that stretched back from the river’s edge. This long-lot system gave the settlers access to resources from both the river and the land: they fished and traded on the river, they farmed the fertile soil of the floodplain, and they hunted on higher forested ground beyond. Because of the orientation of the long lots to the riverside, early French colonists joked that one could travel along the St. Lawrence and see every house in Canada. Later, the long-lot system was repeated inland, so that today narrow farms also stretch back from roads that parallel the river, forming a second tier of long lots.

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Through the first half of the twentieth century, Québec remained a land of farmers eking out a living on poor soils similar to those of New England and the Atlantic Provinces, growing only enough food to support their families. After World War II, Québec’s economy grew steadily, propelled by increasing demand for the natural resources of northern Québec, such as timber, iron ore, and hydroelectric power. In the St. Lawrence River valley, cities prospered from the river transport and the processing of resources (see Figure 2.41). Most of these enterprises were in the hands of Anglo-Canadians (those with ancestry in the British Isles), who were interested in exporting the natural resources of Québec. Québec’s prosperity was most visible in the rapid growth of Montréal, located near the confluence of several rivers.

The Quiet Revolution

In the mid-twentieth century, as rural French Canadians moved into Québec’s cities, the so-called Quiet Revolution began. As their access to education and training increased, the Québécois were for the first time able to compete with English-speaking residents of Québec for higher-paying jobs and political power. Gradually, their conservative Catholic, rural-based culture gave way to a more cosmopolitan one that began to challenge discrimination at the hands of English speakers. The Québécois resisted the disparagement of French culture and efforts to block access to education and economic participation. In the 1970s, the Québécois pushed for more autonomy from Canada and then for outright national sovereignty (separation from Canada). The province passed laws that heavily favored the French language in education, government, and business. In response, many English-speaking natives of Québec left the province. A referendum on Québec sovereignty failed narrowly in 1996. By 2009, a new, more articulate and less radical movement had emerged among young adults, seeking Québécois control over all manner of social policies and even over foreign policy. Specifically, they sought foreign policy control because of strong opposition to Canada’s participation with the United States in the war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the issue of sovereignty for Québec has remained on the back burner.

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Québec extends north into areas around Hudson Bay that are rich in timber and mineral deposits (iron ore, copper, and oil) and are also the homelands of many First Nation groups (see Figure 2.41B). The resources are hard to reach in the remote, difficult, glaciated terrain of the Canadian Shield. Although these are the native lands of the Algonquin-speaking First Nations (primarily Cree), the Québec provincial government has legal control of resources and has pushed through the development of hydroelectric power in the vicinity of James Bay (part of Hudson Bay) in order to run mineral-processing plants, sawmills, and paper mills. The First Nation people protested the clear-cutting of their forests for paper production, the diversion of pristine rivers for hydropower dams, and the loss of natural ecosystems. But by 2009, further hydroelectric projects were planned for First Nation lands. For now, protests are quieted with large cash payments because there is significant public Québécois support for making Québec oil independent and reliant instead on hydropower and wind power. Some electric power generated in northern Québec is sold to the northeastern United States.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

  • Québec is the most culturally distinct subregion in all of North America.
  • The Québécois are sensitive to discrimination in Canada and periodically lobby actively for sovereignty.
  • In Québec there is disagreement between the First Nation population (Cree) and the Québécois over development of the subregion’s rich oil and mineral resources, but there is large public support for energy independence.