This article describes the Canadian province. For other usages, see Quebec (disambiguation).
Quebec (pronounced "keh-BECK" or "kwe-BECK"; French: le Québec) is a Canadian province with a population of 7,487,200 (Statistics Canada, 2003), primarily speakers of the French language making up the bulk of the Francophone population in North America. The capital is Quebec City and the largest city is Montreal. A resident of Quebec is called a Quebecer (also spelled Quebecker) or, in French, un(e) Québécois(e).
The province, Canada's largest, occupies a vast territory (nearly three times the size of France), most of which is very sparsely populated. More than 90 per cent of Quebec's area lies within the Canadian Shield, a large part of which was historically referred to as the Ungava Region. The annexation of this vast and virtually uninhabited northern region (which borders James Bay, Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait) in 1898 and 1912 created the massive Province of Quebec of today. Quebec is located in eastern Canada, bordered by Ontario and Hudson Bay to the west, Atlantic Canada to the east, the United States (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York) to the south and the Arctic Ocean to the north.
The province's three largest hydro-electric projects are built on La Grande Rivière. The extreme north of the province, now called Nunavik, is subarctic or arctic and is home to part of the Inuit nation.
The name Quebec, which comes from the Mi'kmaq word Gepèèg meaning "strait," originally meant the narrowing of the St. Lawrence River off what is currently Quebec City.
The first European explorer of what is now Quebec was Jacques Cartier, who planted a cross in the Gaspé in 1534 and sailed into the St. Lawrence River in 1535.
After 1627, King Louis XIII of France introduced the seigneurial system and forbade settlement in New France by anyone other than Roman Catholics, ensuring that welfare and education was kept firmly in the hands of the church. New France became a royal province in 1663 under Louis XIV and the intendant Jean Talon.
In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act that allowed Quebec to maintain the French Civil Code as its judicial system and sanctioned the freedom of religious choice, allowing the Roman Catholic Church to remain.
The conservative government of Maurice Duplessis and his Union Nationale dominated Quebec politics from 1944 to 1960 with the support of the Catholic church. Pierre Trudeau and other intellectuals and liberals formed an intellectual opposition to Duplessis' repressive regime setting the groundwork for the Quiet Revolution under Jean Lesage's Liberals. The Quiet Revolution was a period of dramatic social and political change that saw the decline of the Roman Catholic Church's influence, the nationalization of Hydro Quebec and the emergence of a separatist movement under former Lesage minister René Lévesque.
During the 1960s a marginal terrorist group known as the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) launched a decade of bombings, robberies and attacks on government offices. Their activities culminated in events referred to as the October Crisis when James Cross, the British trade commissioner to Canada, was kidnapped along with Pierre Laporte, a provincial minister and Vice-Premier, who was murdered a few days later. It has been discovered that under Trudeau's demand, some RCMP agents infiltrated the group and even pushed them into terrorist actions, so as to turn the public opinion against an aspiration shared by most francophones in Quebec.
In 1977 the newly elected Parti Québécois government of René Lévesque introduced the Charter of the French Language. Often known as "Bill 101", it defined French as the only official language of Quebec and is to this day still controversial and widely misunderstood inside and outside Quebec.
On October 30, 1995, in a second referendum the vote for Quebec independence was rejected by an extremely slim margin (50.6% NO to 49.4% YES). The federal Liberal Party under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien came under sharp criticism for mishandling the "No" side of the referendum campaign.
Until 1968 the Quebec legislature was bicameral, consisting of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly. In that year the Legislative Council was abolished, and the Legislative Assembly was renamed the National Assembly. Quebec was the last province to abolish its Legislative Council.
The Government of Quebec awards an order of merit called the National Order of Quebec. It is ispired in part by the FrenchLegion of Honor. It is conferred upon men and women, either Quebec citizens or foreigners, for outstanding achievements.
The territory of Quebec is extremely rich in resources in its coniferous forests, lakes, and rivers—pulp and paper, lumber, and hydroelectricity are still some of the province's most important industries.
The St. Lawrence River Valley is a fertile agricultural region, producing dairy products, fruit, vegetables, maple sugar (Quebec is the world's largest producer), and livestock.
The Québécois people, a people also found in small minorities of Canada and of the United States, consider Quebec their homeland. The Québécois are the largest population of French speakers in the Americas. Most French Canadians live in Quebec, though there are other concentrations of francophones throughout Canada with varying degrees of ties to Quebec. (The Acadians of the Canadian Maritimes consider themselves an entirely separate group.)
Quebec is at once a North American society and the main French-speaking society on the continent. Montreal, the vibrant cosmopolitan metropolis of Quebec, is the second largest francophone city after Paris. History made Quebec a place where cultures meet, where people from all over the world experience America, but from a little distance and through a different eye. Often described as a crossroads between Europe and America, Quebec is home to a people that has the privilege of being connected to the strong cultural currents of the United States, France, and the British Isles all at the same time.
Quebec is also home to 11 aboriginal cultures and that of an Anglophone minority of approximately 600,000 people.
Quebec's fertility rate is now among the lowest in Canada. At 1.48, it is well below the replacement fertility rate of 2.1. This contrasts with the fertility rate before 1960 which was among the highest of the industrialized countries.
Although Quebec represents only 24% of the population of Canada, the number of international adoptions in Quebec is the highest of all provinces of Canada. In 2001, 42% of international adoptions in Canada were carried out in Quebec.
The floral emblem of Quebec is the blue flag iris (Iris versicolor). It was formerly the Madonna lily, to recall the fleur-de-lis, but has been changed to the iris which is native to Quebec.
Quebec is sometimes referred to as "La Belle Province" which means "The Beautiful Province". Until the late 1970s, this phrase was
displayed on Quebec licence plates. It has since been replaced by the province's official motto: "Je me souviens" which means "I remember".
