Quebec

HISTORY

The first French explorer to reach Quebec was Jacques Cartier. He sailed into the St. Lawrence River in 1534 and established a colony near present-day Quebec City.

In 1608 French explorer Samuel de Champlain traveled into the St. Lawrence River. He founded Quebec City as a permanent fur trading outpost at the site of a long abandoned St. Lawrence Iroquoian settlement called Stadacona and signed trading and military agreements with the native people.

The arrival of Samuel de Champlain on the site of Quebec City

The name "Québec" comes from the Algonquin word kébec meaning "where the river narrows."

Quebec City started off with 28 men and colonization was slow and difficult. Many settlers died early, because of harsh weather and diseases. In 1630, there were only 103 colonists living in the settlement, but by 1640, the population had reached 355.

New France became a Royal Province of France in 1663. That same year France sent 800 women to Quebec. The "Filles du Roi" ("Daughters of the King") were poor women who agreed to go to the mostly male New France colony to marry. It worked; the population grew from about 3,000 to 60,000 people between 1666 and 1760.

At its peak in 1712 (before the Treaty of Utrecht), the territory of New France extended from Newfoundland to the Canadian prairies and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, including all the Great Lakes of North America.

In 1758, the British attacked New France by sea and captured the French fort at Louisbourg. The following year British General James Wolfe defeated General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm outside Quebec City. The garrison in Quebec surrendered on September 18, 1759, and by the next year New France had been conquered by the British after the attack on Montreal, which had refused to acknowledge the fall of Canada.

Drawing by a soldier of Wolfe's army depicting the easy climbing of soldiers

France formally ceded its North American land to the British in the Treaty of Paris, signed February 10, 1763. The following year, New France was renamed the Province of Quebec.

In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act, giving recognition to French law, Catholic religion, and French language in the colony. The Quebec Act gave the Quebec people their first Charter of rights.

On January 25, 1791 the British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act, which split the old Province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada.

Lower Canada gave black men the right to vote on March 24, 1837. However, public sentiment against extending the franchise to Blacks existed, and local conventions did prevent Black persons from voting. The prejudice and discrimination they faced affected Black peoples’ decision to attend polling stations.

The British North America Act of 1867 instituted home rule for most of British North America and established French-speaking Quebec (the former Lower Canada) as one of the original provinces of the Dominion of Canada.

The Flag of Quebec, also known as the Fleurdelisé, was first flown on January 21, 1948. This date is now celebrated as Quebec Flag Day to commemorate the adoption of this powerful symbol of provincial identity.

The Fleurdelisé, with its white fleur-de-lis on a blue background, was chosen through a public competition and quickly became a popular symbol of Quebec's distinct culture and heritage.

Flag of Quebec. 

During an official state visit to Canada on July 24, 1967, French President Charles de Gaulle declared to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: "Vive le Québec libre!" ("Long live free Quebec!"). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and many English Canadians.

Quebec incurred one-and-a-half billion Canadian dollars to host the Olympics in 1976 – the city took until 2006 to pay off the debt.

In a 1980 referendum the Quebec population rejected by a 60% vote the proposal from its government to move towards independence from Canada.

In 1995 Quebec held a second referendum to become independent of Canada – it was a close run thing this time, but the vote came in 50.58% against.

In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

FUN QUEBEC FACTS

Quebec is the largest of Canada's ten provinces by size.

Most of Quebec's inhabitants live along or close to the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. Not many people live in the north part of the province.

Quebec has the second-highest population of Canada's ten provinces, after Ontario.

Unlike the other provinces, most people in Quebec speak French (Canadian French) and French is the only official language. There is a strong French-language culture, which includes French-language magazines, newspapers, movies, television and radio shows.

In Quebec, both spouses keep their birth names after marriage and continue to exercise their civil rights under that name, meaning they must use their birth name in contracts, on credit cards, on their driver’s licence, and so on. This rule applies even if they were married outside Quebec.

Quebec is the world's largest producer of maple syrup, responsible for a whopping 70% of the world's supply.

Québec is one of the only places in the world where Pepsi outsells Coca-Cola.