Sur la francophonie Canadienne

Montreal is the next stop on our trip or should I say Montréal est la prochaine étape de notre voyage. Leaving the province of Ontario, we enter the province of Quebec where French is the predominant language and the only official language. In Quebec Province, we will visit the cities of Montreal and Quebec City.

Montreal is in the southwest of the province of Quebec. The city covers most of the Island of Montreal at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. The port of Montreal lies at one end of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, the river gateway that stretches from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. The city is named after the most prominent geographical feature on the island, a three-head hill called Mount Royal.

The French influence in Quebec is amazing since its been more than 350 years since the French were defeated by the British in the French and Indian War waged from 1754 to 1763.  The war pitted the American British colonies against those of New France. At the start of the war, the French North American colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British North American colonies.The outnumbered French particularly depended on the Indians. The European nations declared war on one another in 1756 following months of localized conflict, escalating the war from a regional affair into an intercontinental war known as the Seven Years War.

Most of the fighting ended in North America in 1760 and the war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 10 February 1763. The British offered France the choice of surrendering either its continental North American possessions east of the Mississippi or the Caribbean islands of  Guadeloupe and Martinique, which had been occupied by the British. France chose to cede Canada to Great Britain and to relinquish all claims to the lands lying east of the Mississippi River, outside the environs of New Orleans. Spain, which had joined the conflict in its waning days and failed spectacularly in an attempt to check British ambitions in the Caribbean, was obliged to give up Florida as a condition for the return of Havana, which had been occupied by the British since August 1762. France ceded Louisiana, including New Orleans, to Spain as compensation. Thus, France, which at the beginning of the war and during its first four years held a dominating position over most of North America, had disappeared from that continent.  The map shows the territory gained by the British.  Ironically, it may have led to the ultimate loss of the American colonies because the British imposed taxed on the colonies to help pay for the heavy cost of the war.

While there is some French influence in Louisiana and even in St. Louis, its nowhere near the scale of Quebec.  Montreal is the second largest French speaking city after Paris.  The language spoken in Quebec differs from that in France in its vocabulary and pronunciation. The city has 1.7 million people and over 4 million people live in the metropolitan area.

Quebec is a province with its own parliament within a federation. According to the Canadian Constitution, the provincial parliament has jurisdiction over educational, health, agricultural, economic, and social policy in the province. Quebec governments have sought additional autonomy from the federal government since the 1940s. The Quebec government makes decisions concerning education, health, and economic matters. Municipalities have power over local matters.Quebec operates under two legal systems: French civil law and English criminal law.