Between Montreal merchants drained off most of the furs from the southwest. Competition from New York and Albany was gradually eliminated by the decision to return to the colonies the regulation of the fur trade and by the annexation of the Ohio territory to the province.
Although the fur trade was vital for the province and its commerce with Britain, it was not the main domestic economic activity. Agriculture , especially the growing and preparation of wheat products, occupied the largest number of people and supplied the local market.
Surpluses increasingly allowed food to be exported to the West Indies and Britain. Industrial production at the artisan level supplied domestic needs and the smaller needs of the fur trade.
In the late 18th century, a high birth rate led the population to more than double, from nearly 70 in to nearly in and over in Migration from Britain or France played little part in this growth. About people left the St. Lawrence Valley after the Conquest of New France , and the expected British immigration did not take place. The number of "old subjects" was very small - some in and perhaps in Their number grew significantly only after the American Revolutionary War —83 when Loyalists arrived in significant numbers; the census listed some 25 The Loyalists settled mainly in the southwestern part of the province, which later became Upper Canada [Ontario].
The British, many of whom were merchants and officials, held influence and status that was disproportionate to their smaller numbers in relation to the French. They and their entourages which often included francophones therefore held social as well as political power. The merchants, with the advantage of credit in London, soon controlled commercial relations with Great Britain.
At first supported by the military authorities and helped by francophone voyageurs, they acquired the lion's share of the fur trade in less than two decades. They established the North West Company , which took an increasingly larger share of the trade. By , it was the most powerful fur-trade organization in the Province of Quebec. Over 23, workers are employed in this sector, producing about 42 per cent of Canada's paper. Timber, wood pulp and newsprint together constitute 20 per cent of Quebec exports, 80 per cent of which goes to the US.
The lumber industry is another active sector. There are over 1, lumber processing plants, and the wood industry alone employs over 36, people. By , this number had been reduced to 1, fishermen. Most owned boats that are less than 10 m long. Quebec's annual catch is only a fraction of that taken by the Atlantic Provinces. The main catches are groundfish and various molluscs and crustaceans. The fishery now relies more on shellfish, which make up two-thirds of the catch.
Groundfish now account for only 10 per cent of the catch and pelagic fish e. Quebec is the largest producer of electricity in Canada. Its installed generating capacity is 36, MW, or more than 30 per cent of the Canadian total, more than 99 per cent of the production is hydraulic. In the s, the province tried to reduce its dependency on petroleum products.
In petroleum accounted for 74 per cent of all energy used in the province. In , it was The hydro main project of the s was the James Bay project. It produces over 10, MW of electricity. A large portion of this electricity is exported to Ontario, New Brunswick and the northeastern United States.
French and English merchants dreamed of a commercial empire along the St. Although the North American commercial empire never materialized, the St. The opening of the St. The opening of the seaway in , while contributing to the development of North Shore ports, also led to the rapid growth of Ontario ports on the Great Lakes. In the mids, The railway network was mainly developed in southern Quebec, though the National Transcontinental Railway was an expensive, failed effort to open up frontiers in the north.
The construction of the Mirabel airport in the s was very controversial. Today, in retrospect, it seems that the detractors of the project were right: in , international flights were all dispatched back to Dorval airport, leaving only air freight to Mirabel.
Almost 85 per cent of the 10 million passengers who annually used Quebec's airports passed through Dorval and Mirabel. The province has 55, km of roads and 2, km of superhighways. More than 3. The political institutions of the province of Quebec have not fundamentally changed since Initially a French colony, Quebec was later administered directly by British authorities.
In it became part of a legislative union, and in a member of the Canadian federation. In Quebec did not sign Canada's repatriated Constitution, although it did sign an accord in to enter into Canada's constitutional agreement see Meech Lake Accord ; Meech Lake Accord: Document and another, the so-called Charlottetown Accord see Charlottetown Accord: Document , in However, neither of these was ratified and the latter was overwhelmingly rejected in a national referendum.
The evolution of Quebec's institutions has thus not been marked by any legal discontinuity. The most important institutions are the central political institutions. Quebec, like all constitutional regimes with a British tradition, has no rigid division of legislative and executive functions among its various agencies. Its political system is based on co-operation rather than on a separation of powers. In the s, efforts were made to ensure an equal number of voters per riding around 34, voters.
The National Assembly has the power to pass laws in areas defined as provincial jurisdiction by section 92 of the British North America Act. The political party with a majority of seats in the National Assembly forms a government. The leader of the party becomes the premier of the province see Quebec Premiers: Table. The Queen's representative in the province is the lieutenant-governor. He or she is appointed by federal authorities in consultation with the province.
The role is mainly symbolic, but in some situations the lieutenant-governor may be called upon to settle a parliamentary issue. As the sovereign's direct and personal representative, the lieutenant-governor ensures the continuity of government. It is the Conseil executif that decides on the general orientation of government action.
The 27 or so Cabinet ministers are appointed by the premier and are bound by the principle of ministerial solidarity.
Since the s, major reforms have transformed the operations of these central bodies. The National Assembly's rules of procedure were modernized and adapted to Quebec's circumstances: a total of 11 parliamentary standing committees have been established and debates are now televised. The Conseil executif is operating more and more with the assistance of departmental standing committees, each headed by a minister of state. A priorities committee provides better planning, and a treasury board, headed by a minister, is responsible for formulating and implementing the government's financial policies.
From the Conquest of and the Royal Proclamation of , and basically until , Quebec was a British colony. In , with the Constitutional Act , the frontiers of the colony were reduced to what is essentially southern Quebec today. The colony was also granted an elected Assembly. But the territory, like any other British colony, was directly and undemocratically governed from the metropolis through a governor named by London and a body of Councils also composed of non-elected members.
The Assembly had limited powers. Because French-Canadians had developed a distinct identity by the end of the 18th century, the struggle for democracy became, at least for half a century, synonymous with nationalism. After the Rebellion of , Quebec was amalgamated with Upper Canada Ontario in and became part of a legislative union. After the failure of that union, Quebec became in a province of the Canadian federation.
For many French-speaking Canadians who supported the British North America Act of , Confederation was based on the principle of a federation of nations, namely the British and the French both the French and the British excluded the First Nations. But that interpretation of Confederation was never shared by a majority of English-speaking Canadians. They tended to see Canada as a homogeneous nation composed of different regions represented by the provinces.
This unresolved debate about the nature of the federation has been at the core of every political and constitutional crisis in Canada and the province of Quebec since Two years later a major crisis in Quebec-Canada relations occurred when Quebec did not sign Canada's repatriated Constitution initiated by Pierre Elliott Trudeau government.
The second crisis occurred between and during the debate about the Meech Lake Accord. In the Charlottetown was rejected, although for different reasons, by both Quebec and the rest of Canada. In , a second referendum in Quebec on sovereignty was barely won by the federalist side After the Conquest and during the 19th century, the French referred to themselves as "les Canadiens" and described the "others" as "les Anglais.
This contributed to the emergence of a separatist movement and a "Quebec only" identity. From to provincial politics were dominated by the Conservative Party. The conservatives ruled for all but five of those years, and from to The power of the Conservative Party symbolized the alliance between the Church and business, and a commitment to a socially conservative society led by private enterprise. Wilfrid Laurier 's victory at the federal level in propelled the provincial Liberals to power in They remained in power for half a century, except between and , until The Liberals maintained the alliance between the Church and private enterprise.
The Church was given a free hand in social affairs and education while the political and economical spheres were left to politicians and businesspeople.
The domination of the Liberals was interrupted in when Maurice Duplessis and the Union Nationale party took power. That party resulted from the merger of the provincial Conservative Party and a group of young Liberal dissidents active during the Depression.
The Godbout government was perhaps the most socially progressive provincial government of the century in Quebec. But its accomplishments were overshadowed by Second World War when the federal government used its special wartime powers to intervene in provincial affairs. In the domination of the Liberal Party since really came to an end. With only 35 per cent of the popular vote, Maurice Duplessis was re-elected and this time governed until The Duplessis government was characteristic of the Cold War, right wing and vehemently anti-Communist.
Opposition to his extremely conservative style of government in the s prepared the field for the reforms of the s. When a group of young liberals led by Jean Lesage took power in it was the beginning of a new era and the period of reforms known as the Quiet Revolution. The Church was replaced by the provincial state in social affairs and the state intervened in the economy to promote the interests of French-speaking business.
Quebec Background. Cultural Groups First Nations. Jewish Records. Local Research Resources. Renamed Co. Major Repositories. Migration Routes. Lawrence, the elevations vary from less than 1, to over 3, feet. The Monteregians are considerably lower, their highest elevation slightly exceeding 1, feet.
The province is abundantly watered. Its liquid area, not including tidal waters, comprises 71, square miles, compared with 49, in Ontario , the nearest rival.
The main artery is the river St. Lawrence, which brings transatlantic vessels to the harbour of Montreal, nearly 1, miles from the ocean, during seven and a half months of the year. Among the most important tributaries of the St.
Lawrence must be mentioned the Ottawa, the St. Maurice, the Richelieu, and the Saguenay. With the exception of the Richelieu, the importance of which is only local, these rivers are navigable only in part, but they have been long used for the floating of timber.
There are besides in the province of Quebec numerous lakes of all dimensions, the largest being Mistassini lake, with an area of square miles. In the upper regions, winters are very long and extremely severe, but in the settled part the seasons do not offer very striking contrasts.
While the winters are still cold, the summers are warm and sunny. In general, the climate is considered healthy and favourable to most kinds of culture. The province of Quebec holds the second rank in the Confederation as to population.
According to the latest official census, the total number of its inhabitants was 3,, in , compared to 3,, in Ontario, but a recent estimate of the Bureau of Statistics advances the figure for Quebec to 3,, in [For current population statistics, see this table ].
An immense majority are of French origin, though Canadian-born, the total being 2,,, against , of all other origins, British or foreign. And all of these, while speaking the two official languages of the country, English and French, with the exception of a negligible minority, claim French as their mother tongue. In many of the rural districts, the population might nearly be said exclusively French-Canadian. The habitant is constantly gaining ground even in the Eastern Townships, which were expressly set apart for the settlement of the United Empire Loyalists more than a hundred years ago.
There remains in that region only one riding in which the two elements are about equally balanced. In all the others, which were overwhelmingly English-speaking not many years ago, the French have attained to-day a supremacy of number which is unquestionable. Though it has shown a certain tendency to decrease in the last decade, the birth-rate of Quebec is still the highest in the Confederation, Johnstone; reproduced in the Canadian Magazine , Vol. Another noticeable fact in the province of Quebec is the great numerical strength of Roman Catholics, who number 2,, against , of all other denominations combined.
Montreal , the largest city of the province, is also the largest of Canada [this is not the case any more]. According to the latest available official census, it has a population of ,, but these figures are for the city proper, and do not include Verdun, Outremont, and Westmount, three important cities immediately contiguous but municipally distinct. Montreal claims to-day a population of over a million, exclusive of the aforesaid adjoining towns.
Though coming far behind the metropolis, Quebec, the capital of the province, is still in numerical importance the sixth city of Canada, with its population of over , Other cities worthy of mention are Sherbrooke 35, , Hull 32, , Shawinigan 20, , Lachine 20, , St. Hyacinthe 17, , Valleyfield 17, , and Chicoutimi 16, [for current statistics of the urban areas, consult this page ].
It is estimated that out of the ,, acres of land which cover the province of Quebec, only 43,,, not even an eighth, are suited for agricultural purposes. The reason is that the major part of the land, about 62 per cent, is in too high latitudes to permit the economic production of cereals. However, with approximately 6,, acres under actual cultivation at the present time, the province still retains the third rank in Canadian farm production. Farmers sow very little wheat, not because the soil itself is not as well suited for it as any other, but because it is less profitable owing to other conditions.
The dairying industry is well established in all the settled parts of the province, nearly every parish having its cheese factory and creamery. Quebec produces approximately 30 per cent of all the creamery butter and about 20 per cent of all the factory cheese produced in Canada , ,, pounds of the first, and ,, of the second, The making of maple sugar is also an industry of considerable size. In Quebec produced 2,, pounds of maple sugar and 2,, gallons of maple syrup, respectively 90 per cent.
The central area of the sugar industry in Quebec is in the Eastern Townships. Other items of importance are honey production, market-gardening, and tobacco-growing. Primitive methods of farming have been rapidly disappearing, especially in late years, thanks to the policy of the government. The placing in every county of farm demonstrators trained in agricultural colleges has been especially helpful in that respect. Quebec in ranked fourth among the provinces of Canada in value of fish caught.
Sea fisheries, which were formerly controlled by the Dominion government, reverted to the province in They are by far the most important part of the industry. Cod, herring, mackerel, lobster, salmon, and smelts are, the principal kinds caught in the salt water of the gulf and of Chaleur Bay. Game fish is found in abundance in the numerous streams and lakes of the province. John is renowned as the home of the best ouananiche.
Quebec is also one of the best big game territories on the continent. Moose, cariboo, deer, and bear are still plentiful in its immense forested lands. Fish and game in the province of Quebec have not only a commercial importance; they are also an indirect source of revenue in attracting from the outside hosts of tourists and sportsmen, who spend lavishly and add to the local wealth.
So far, Quebec is the only province in the Dominion which leases exclusive fishing and hunting rights over large tracts of forest, lake, or river territory [this practice has been discontinued since]. The forest domain of the province of Quebec, New Quebec not included, is approximately estimated at ,, acres. It is divided into private forests, which are located principally in the central St.
The territory of the Crown itself is divided into forests leased to different parties for a fixed period about 49,, acres ; into township reserves destined to supply the adjoining villages , acres ; into domanial forests reserved for future requirements of the industry 1,, acres ; and lastly into unleased timber limits about 98,, acres.
The unleased forests are in absolute possession of the government, and free from all encumbrance.
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