Unlike the other provinces, most people in Quebec speakFrench (Canadian French), which is the onlyofficial language. There is a strong French-languageculture, which includes French-languagenewspapers,magazines,movies,television andradio shows. Their culture and language, however, is quite different from that ofFrance, mainly because of Quebec's isolation from France since the 17th-century and the separate evolutions of the French language in Quebec and in France. The Quebec culture is also influenced byEnglish-speaking Canada.
Thegovernment of Quebec has its offices in the capital,Quebec City, which is one of the oldest cities inNorth America. The city with the most people in the province isMontreal, which is also the second-largest city in Canada.
Quebec was part ofNew France until 1760, which then became underBritish control. Quebec became a province in the Canadian Confederation in 1867.
Since then, some people in Quebec have wanted to leave Canada. Since Quebec is mainly French-speaking, most of its people feel that it is very different from the rest of Canada and want to keep it that way. Some feel that for this to happen, Quebec mustleave Canada and become its owncountry. However, the people of Quebec are divided as to its place in Canada.
Quebec helddemocraticvotes in 1980 and 1995 to decide whether to leave Canada. In 1995, the people of Quebec chose to stay in Canada by a 1% margin.
Aboriginal people andInuit groups were the first peoples who lived in what is now Québec. The Aboriginal people lived byhunting, gathering, andfishing. Some of the Aboriginal people, calledIroquoians, plantedsquash andmaize. The Inuit fished and hunted whales and seals for fur and food. Sometimes, theywarred with one another.
Vikings came inlongboats fromScandinavia in 1000 AD.Basque whalers and fishermen traded furs with Aboriginal people throughout the 1500s.
The firstFrench explorer to reach Quebec wasJacques Cartier. He sailed into the St. Lawrence River in 1534 and established acolony near present-day Quebec City.
After 1627, KingLouis XIII of France made a rule that only Roman Catholics could go to live in New France.Jesuitclerics tried toconvert New France'sAboriginal people to Catholicism. New France became a royal province of France in 1663, and itspopulation grew from about 3,000 to 60,000 people between 1666 and 1760. Colonists built farms on the banks of theSaint Lawrence River.
In 1753, France began building a series of forts in the BritishOhio River Country. Britain asked the French to remove the forts, and the French refused. By 1756, France and Britain were at war. In 1758, the British attacked New France by sea and captured the French fort at Louisbourg.
In 1759, British General James Wolfe defeated General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm outside Quebec City. France ceded its North American land to Great Britain at theTreaty of Paris (1763). In 1764, New France was renamed theProvince of Quebec.
Theconservative government of Maurice Duplessis dominated Quebecpolitics from 1944 to 1959 with the support of the Catholic Church. After he died, the Quiet Revolution was a period of social and political change.The newly-elected Liberals passed laws in which the English Canadians lost their control over the Quebececonomy, the Roman Catholic Church became less important, and the Quebec government took over thehydro-electric companies.
In 1963, aterrorist group that became known as the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) beganbombings,robberies, and attacks on government offices. In 1970, the FLQ kidnappedJames Cross, the British trade commissioner to Canada. The FLQ alsokidnapped andassassinated Pierre Laporte, the Quebec Minister of Labour and Deputy Premier. Laporte's body was found in the trunk of Paul Rose's car on the South Shore ofMontreal on October 17 1970.Canadian Prime MinisterPierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, and 497 people were arrested.
The Quiet Revolution was so named because it was not marked by manyprotests or much violence.
In 1977, the newly-electedParti Québécois government ofRené Lévesque introduced the Charter of the French Language. Often known as Bill 101, it definedFrench as the only official language of Quebec.
The government is based in the provincial capital, Quebec City. The government is led by a lieutenant-governor (pronounced "lef-") who represents the Crown. As of 2024, she isManon Jeannotte. The political leader of the province is the premier. He isFrançois Legault of theCoalition Avenir de Quebec (CAQ), elected in 2018.
