In Canada today, English (60%) and French (24%) are the most common mother tongues, or first languages. Largely because of immigration, about 16% of Canadians have a language other than English or French as their first language.

Not all Canadians who speak French as their first language live in Québec, but a very large majority - 82% - do. The other 18% of Canada's Francophones live in other provinces and territories, particularly northern Ontario and New Brunswick. New Brunswick is officially a bilingual province. Its French-speaking communities in the northern part of the province are historically as old as any communities in the province of Québec.

French-speaking Canadians who live in the province of Québec are identified as Québecois. Those who live outside the province of Québec are generally identified as French-Canadians. However, there are also regional names for some groups. For example, those in New Brunswick go by the name of Acadiens (French) or Acadians (English). Those living in the province of Alberta call themselves Franco-Albertans (English).

Historically, Québecois have considered their province the heartland of French-speaking culture in Canada. Québec is the only province in Canada with French as the only official language. Québecois have not shown great concern for the survival of Francophone culture in other regions of the country. Meanwhile, since 1971, when it was introduced by the federal government, Québecois have regarded Multiculturalism as a threat to their identity as an equal partner in the nation with English Canada.

The European nation of France established settlements in northern North America beginning in the year 1605. Settlements in the part of the continent that is now covered by the province of Québec followed in 1608, well before the arrival of an English presence.

Settlements in the St Lawrence River valley succeeded

• because of fertile soil and a sufficiently long growing season for the success of agricultural practices brought from Europe;
• because the navigable river made the settlements at Québec City and Montréal successful ports in world trade networks; and
• because the river led a long way into the continent, thus making possible an extensive and lucrative fur trade with a network of Native peoples.

Despite England's defeat of the French at Québec in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, English settlers remained a minority in the lower St. Lawrence River valley. The English governors of the colony of Canada thus found themselves governing people who did not speak their language and were unfamiliar with their culture. Because the European countries of France and England were traditionally very hostile to one another, this situation in North America was most peculiar.

Today, many Québecois regard their province as their own. Anne Hébert, one of Québec's best-loved writers, described the Québecois view in an essay titled "Century 1867-1967":

This province is a country within a country. Quebec the original heart. The hardest and deepest kernel. The core of first time. All around, nine other provinces form the flesh of this still-bitter fruit called Canada.

The creation of the world took place on the rock of Quebec. Face to the river. Adam and Eve were Louis Hébert and Marie Rollet. The first dwelling. The first land tilled. The first sheaf of grain reaped. The first bit of bread. The first child brought into life. The first body laid in earth.

This passage refers to Adam and Eve. According to Hebrew and Christian religion, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman created by God. So Hébert is creating a myth of identity that associates French-speaking people with the land and the St. Lawrence River.

The Québecois identity with the St Lawrence River valley is fierce, proud, and enduring. In a continent full of English-speaking people (both in the rest of Canada and in the USA), Québec thus seems an isolated island of ethnic uniqueness.

Native peoples in Québec, who lived on the same land for many centuries prior to the arrival of the French, are seldom recognized as having a prior claim to the land. This is a problem that Native peoples face across North America, but the problem comes to public attention most noticeably when Québecois who wish to separate from the rest of Canada speak of their province as their land - as Anne Hébert writes of it.

As the profile of Sir Guy Carleton in the Peoples of Canada module suggests, bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada were a great challenge even long before Canada came into being in 1867. The present government of the province of Québec is formed by the Parti Québecois. The ultimate aim of this political party is the separation of Québec from the rest of Canada and some new form of association with Canada. According to separatists, only a distinct society and distinct nation will accurately reflect the cultural distinctness that Québecois feel in their hearts.

But three referendums among the people of Québec on this matter have shown that there are also many in the province who wish to remain part of Canada. This module is concentrating on those people in Québec who identify themselves as Québecois. But in the module about the regions of Canada, we will see that Québec as a province includes more Canadians than those who identify themselves as Québecois. Thus, a cultural sovereignty and a territorial sovereignty are two different ideas and they involve two distinct groups. Cultural sovereignty is an idea favoured by only those Québecois who wish to separate from the rest of Canada. However, their idea of a homeland is the entire province of Québec. Yet Québec is also home

• to Québecois who wish to remain in Canada,
• to many Canadians who are not Québecois, and
• to Native peoples, especially in the part of the province that is not covered by the St Lawrence River valley's drainage basin.

What do we mean when we state that not all Canadians living in the province of Québec are Québecois? It is difficult to state precisely what the most reliable marks of cultural identity are, but it has been traditional in Canada to identify Canadians in terms of language.

As of the 1996 census of Canada, 81.5% of people living in Québec had French as their first language. This means that a significant minority - about 18.5% - of the total population of the province do not have French as their first language. Of these 18.5%

• 8.8% speak English as their first language. These Canadians are called Anglophones.
• Chinese, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Punjabi, Ukrainian, Arabic, Vietnamese, and people of other descent make up 9.7% of the population of Québec. They speak neither French nor English as their first language. These Canadians are identified as Allophones.

During a period of 18 years beginning in 1969, three provincial governments in Québec used their powers to make laws ordering that the French language be recognized as the official language of Québec. In 1977, the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) was enacted to make all of Québec's society work in French. All governments, corporations, and service industries were required to make French their language of operation. Use of the English language was prohibited on all public advertising.

The only part of life that was not altered entirely to French was Education. English-speaking people living in Québec were guaranteed their own schools in the British North America Act of 1867. This right was again guaranteed in the Constitution Act of 1982.

Language goes a long way to preserving a Québecois culture within Canada. Indeed, for French-speaking Canadians in others provinces, Canada's official policy of bilingualism has meant that their cultures have been able to survive and flourish. So language remains the most precious cultural signifier of this cultural group.

Le Devoir, a Montréal newspaper started in 1910, is the voice of the Québecois élite. It covers world news through its association with the Paris newspaper, Le Monde, but focuses on the life of Québec and its relations with the federal government in Ottawa.

Historically, the Roman Catholic denomination of Christianity was a major force around which Québecois culture cohered. In the past five decades, however, the culture has tended to identify Roman Catholicism as an inhibiting force that prevented cultural development. Today, Québecois culture is identifiable largely in secular, not cultural terms.

Distinctive and famous regions of Québecois culture include the city of Québec, the region of Lac St Jean and the Saguenay River, La Beauce - which is a region south of the St Lawrence River - and La Gaspésie - on the south side of the St Lawrence estuary.

Québecois culture continues to flourish. It is true that the new economic and industrial trend towards Globalization threatens the cultural identity of all groups and most nations, but Québec appears willing and able to adapt to changes in order to preserve its cultural identity. The Canadian spirit of compromise has served this cultural group very well. History shows that Canadians have been able to maintain a delicate balance of cultural interests. However, most Canadians understand that maintaining the balance is an ongoing challenge, not an achievement that has been completed.