Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I said 50 years, so that's 1810. 10 years matter given the super high reproductive rates of the French Canadians.

In 1760, there were 66,000 French Canadians in today's Québec. In 1810 (without arrivals from France) there were roughly 240,000 French Canadians in today's Québec. So that's a massive increase in 50 years even without immigration. But in 1760, it's usually little known, there were also 7,000 French people living in Upper Canada, or Pays d'en Haut as it was called (Ontario, Detroit and Chicago areas). So without immigration, all these people combined would have gone from 71,000 in 1760 to 260,000 in 1810.

But if Canada had remained French 50 more years, one assumes there would also have been some immigration from France. This very interesting article by J.N. Biraben shows that migration from France to Canada accelerated in the last 2 decades before British conquest, as Canada was finally taking off and so attracting more and more people from France: https://www.persee.fr/doc/adh_0066-2062_1967_num_1966_1_927

Between 1740 and 1759 (which in fact means between 1742 and 1754, because in the other years there was war and it was impossible to reach Canada from France), nearly 3,600 French people settled in Canada (definitely, not temporarily as was the case for soldiers and administrators). This is the highest number of French people Canada attracted in 150 years.

So the French population of Canada in 1810 would have been higher than 260,000. 300,000 seems like a very minimum, but if immigration had ballooned as it was starting to do, 500,000 people in 1810 doesn't seem too far fetched (especially considering that if the French Revolution had happened as it did, lots of people would have fled to French Canada).

The British were unable to populate and outnumber 66,000 French Canadians in Québec, so if only 65,000 French people lived in Upper Canada in 1810 (which doesn't seem too far fetched with at a minimum of 300,000 French people in Canada in 1810 and 0 British people), then it's game over for the British in Upper Canada (unless they deport everybody, but they didn't dare to do it in Lower Canada, so it's hard to imagine they would have done it in Upper Canada considering the numbers, and also considering that things that were still ok to do in the 1740s were looked at with horror by more civilized Europeans in the 1810s).

From there it's not hard to imagine that Manitoba and then the rest of the west is populated by Francophone outflows from Upper Canada. If Upper Canada is not British in its population, it's hard to see how they can land in Québec and trek for thousands of miles to reach the western prairies while bypassing all the Francophone settlements in between.

So most likely the British population would have been confined to the Maritimes, or there would have been other events that we cannot even imagine (like decades-long wars between Francophone and Anglophone settlers on the Ohio-Indiana-Illinois border).


According to Biraben, more French people settled in Canada between 1740 and 1759 (i.e. in the 12 years between 1742 and 1754 in fact) than in the 60 years between 1680 and 1739.

France stupidly gave up Canada just when the colony was finally taking off. Of course there would never have been as many French immigrants as the British immigrants who populated the US, and French Canada would never have been as populated as the US, but 50 million Francophones in North America today from Gaspésie to the Pacific is not something that would be far-fetched. The southern border could also have been more southern, as Detroit, Chicago, St Louis could have remained Francophone, depending on the outcomes of the local wars that would inevitably have happened between settlers of both nations and historical rivals.

Manitoba was almost evenly divided 50-50 between French and English speakers when talks about admitting it as a Canadian province started to become more serious.

Also, if you look at new world colonies, they also increased the population of the dominant cultural group through the assimilation and intermarriage with Indigenous peoples. This was not a good thing for Indigenous peoples obviously, but it was a reality of the times.

The territory we are talking about was not unhabited prior to the arrival of the Europeans. There were several hundred thousand Indigenous people living there and if most of Canada had remained a French-speaking colony/country for several centuries they would also have contributed to the overall francophone population, like what you see with Spanish in Latin America.

Actually, something of this nature had already started in Canada with French missionaries who converted many Indigenous groups and taught them French. You also had the emergence of the Métis people (generally Indigenous-French mixed) due to intermarriage.

But all of this was deliberately short-circuited and almost all of the French-oriented Indigenous groups ended up being assimilated to English starting in the late 1800s.

When you consider that the former French colonies in present-day Canada have about 20 million descendants in Canada and the US, if you count all of these factors an Argentina-size French-speaking country in northern North America was definitely something that could have materialized.

[New Brisavoine]

I think larger than Argentina. Not as large as the US, but larger than Argentina. A lot would have depended on the southern border, as Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, etc, would have added way more potential in terms of population. But you'd have a terrible (horrible) relationship with your southern US neighbor for sure, worse than currently with Trump. You'd be to North America what France/Germany were to Europe. And then we made peace, but the Americans are not really into making peace with foes unless they utterly defeat them and request unconditional surrender.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I think larger than Argentina. Not as large as the US, but larger than Argentina. A lot would have depended on the southern border, as Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, etc, would have added way more potential in terms of population. But you'd have a terrible (horrible) relationship with your southern US neighbor for sure, worse than currently with Trump. You'd be to North America what France/Germany were to Europe. And then we made peace, but the Americans are not really into making peace with foes unless they utterly defeat them and request unconditional surrender.

Larger than Argentina in geographic size, but perhaps similar in population. We also could have opened up immigration from other countries (not necessarily France) like Argentina and Brazil did. France needn't have been our only source of immigration, especially not when would have completely controlled the integration of newcomers from the beginning.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

the Anglo-Saxons have this annoying habit of celebrating linguistic "diversity" when that diversity is gone, which I've always found annoying.

That habit is actually... a victory dance. So was rock 'n' roll. We do that.

I think it is obvious that the fantasy is not going to play out this time, and the celebration was laughably premature.

We are not going to become the mandarin class of a global shadow-empire that will allow us to entertain an endless parade of quaint and unthreatening local customs, secure in the knowledge that nothing more than noblesse oblige will ever be required.

But that was the plan.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Dieppe, NB.

Number of people speaking French at home:
2006 census: 13,280 (72.5% of total population)
2021 census: 17,455 (62.6% of total population)

The number of people speaking English at home in Dieppe nearly doubled between 2006 and 2021. At this rate, the Francophones will be a minority in Dieppe in the 2030s.

Dieppe has been trying various measures to retain its francophone character over the past 10-15 years. They've brought in sign regulations and implemented French as the mandatory working language of the municipality. Of course these measures can only do so much. And such measures have been ridiculed or attacked as being anti-freedom by local anglophones and also by some of the francophones who believe in la bonne entente at all costs.

These types of measures have also been adopted (or proposed) elsewhere in New Brunswick in some municipalities close to Bathurst, and also some municipalities in Eastern Ontario near Ottawa like Clarence-Rockland and Russell (which includes the somewhat francophone town of Embrun and the entirely anglophone town of Russell).

They are always extremely controversial as the parallel with Quebec's language laws is always made, and Quebec's laws are generally hated and demonized in the ROC.

[suburbanite]

I don't see the historical case for an Argentina-sized Canada under the same borders but with French rule. Being controlled by the British or the French does not change the physical geography of the land. The days of higher French-Canadian birth rates were at a time of lower standard of living when population was almost directly correlated with amount of arable land. Unless you're going to argue that millions of French speaking people would have had a higher propensity to settle in unfarmable woodland than their British counterparts, then the physical area known of Canada would have likely hit a similar population threshold determined by the amount of economic opportunity made available within its physical borders. The French are not some sort of demographic unicorns, and they've followed the same decrease in birth rates as they've moved up the SoL curve as everyone else has. Forecasting exponential natural growth based on late 18th century numbers is...problematic.

I mean Canada's population just passed 40 million people, and it took an extraordinary surge in immigration with almost no regard for cultural or lingual fit (the things I've just heard are much more near and dear to French Canadians when it comes to immigration). I could buy that the total presence of French-speaking people in North America could hit that number, as their diaspora would also be proportionally larger. A 45-million person Canada predominantly comprised of the ancestors of 19th century Quebec and immigration from France is a pretty wild conjecture in my eyes.

Also the idea of French Canada not only holding on to the historical borders but also gaining parts of the U.S. Great Lakes presents some challenges. Namely that when the U.S. was manifesting its destiny, the French fleet was mainly confined to its home ports under British blockade, and the Grand Armee was disintegrating from its foray into Russia and continued attempts to stop the swelling of the "Spanish Ulcer".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

That habit is actually... a victory dance. So was rock 'n' roll. We do that.

I think it is obvious that the fantasy is not going to play out this time, and the celebration was laughably premature.

We are not going to become the mandarin class of a global shadow-empire that will allow us to entertain an endless parade of quaint and unthreatening local customs, secure in the knowledge that nothing more than noblesse oblige will ever be required.

But that was the plan.

Unthreatening here is an important word.

Suppress the rival cultures and identity to the point where they are no longer any threat to your supremacy.

Then bring them back in a folksy cute role to liven things up a bit.

21st-century bilingual road signs in provinces like Manitoba come to mind.

(BTW, "anglo" descended people are far from being the only ones who do this. Though they might be the masters of the art.)

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The territory we are talking about was not unhabited prior to the arrival of the Europeans. There were several hundred thousand Indigenous people living there

According to Biraben, before the arrival of the Europeans there were 20,000 Amerindians in Québec, 50,000 to 60,000 in Ontario, 25,000 to 30,000 in New England + New York State, 5,000 to 6,000 in the Maritimes + Newfoundland.

It's interesting how Ontario had the most Indians.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

According to Biraben, before the arrival of the Europeans there were 20,000 Amerindians in Québec, 50,000 to 60,000 in Ontario, 25,000 to 30,000 in New England + New York State, 5,000 to 6,000 in the Maritimes + Newfoundland.

It's interesting how Ontario had the most Indians.

Probably around 30,000 on the Prairies, and maybe just under 20,000 in BC.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I don't see the historical case for an Argentina-sized Canada under the same borders but with French rule. Being controlled by the British or the French does not change the physical geography of the land.

Canada has the potential for far more inhabitants than 40 million. Also, as I've said, it may have included more southerly regions which were majority French and would have been even more majority French if France had remained 50 more years in control of Canada. It's hard to see how the US gains control of the Detroit area, for example, if you have 50,000+ French settlers in the area who make up 95% of the population. Just as the US couldn't take control of southern Ontario because there were too many British settlers there resisting annexation by the US.

I can see this large Francophone country having anywhere between 50 and 100 million people, but the more you advance in time, the more history becomes different from how it really turned out, so it's hard to make forecasts beyond the 1850s...

What's certain is Canada within its current borders, i.e. not even including Detroit, Chicago, St Louis, etc, can easily accommodate 100 million people. The prairies could have fed easily that number. And without British conquest, the French Canadians are free to grow and expand westward without any limit. By 1950, even without any immigration, they would have been several tens of millions of people. Imagine what French Canadian fertility would have done in the prairies which are larger and more fertile than the St Lawrence valley...

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Also the idea of French Canada not only holding on to the historical borders but also gaining parts of the U.S. Great Lakes presents some challenges.

Those areas were... not part of the US.

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Namely that when the U.S. was manifesting its destiny, the French fleet was mainly confined to its home ports under British blockade

It's not the British fleet which saved southern Ontario from being conquered by the US, is it?

(and yes, I know about that small naval battle on lake Ontario, but it's beside the point)

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I can see this large Francophone country having anywhere between 50 and 100 million people, but the more you advance in time, the more history becomes different from how it really turned out, so it's hard to make forecasts beyond the 1850s...

What's certain is Canada within its current borders, i.e. not even including Detroit, Chicago, St Louis, etc, can easily accommodate 100 million people. The prairies could have fed easily that number. And without British conquest, the French Canadians are free to grow and expand westward without any limit. By 1950, even without any immigration, they would have been several tens of millions of people. Imagine what French Canadian fertility would have done in the prairies which are larger and more fertile than the St Lawrence valley...


Those areas were... not part of the US.


It's not the British fleet which saved southern Ontario from being conquered by the US, is it?

(and yes, I know about that small naval battle on lake Ontario, but it's beside the point)

Again this makes no sense to me. The Prairies can easily accommodate 100 million people and the only reason they didn't is because Anglo settlers have less kids than French? The Prairies have a ton of farmland but the lot sizes were massive because the amount of land a family needed to economically sustain itself was pretty high. The U.S. is a population of over 300 million people yet there's a reason only 1 million of them live in Montana.
Populations tend to grow to the level that they can be sustained at by the opportunity that is available. These map-gazing exercises that draw wild conclusions about the ideal population of a region based on nothing other than the amount of acreage that you can pack people into completely ignores every historical example of human settlement patterns. To get to that number you're talking multiple Paris-sized cities in an area that has no major navigable waterways, no direct connection to the ocean, no commercial trigger for outsized urban growth, and apparently for no other reason then "we like to have many children".

The British Fleet did not directly stop the American incursion into Canada, but it was the vehicle through which Britain could project power more than any other nation at the time. What ultimately ended the war was the realization from the Americans that they could face direct consequences on their home turf. France's precarious position would have rendered them completely incapable of landing a force that ultimately burned down the White House or threatened to take New Orleans.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Again this makes no sense to me. The Prairies can easily accommodate 100 million people and the only reason they didn't is because Anglo settlers have less kids than French? The Prairies have a ton of farmland but the lot sizes were massive because the amount of land a family needed to economically sustain itself was pretty high.

The Prairies are more fertile than Québec, so if the Québécois could live on smaller farms, surely they could have lived on smaller farms in the Prairies. It's only lack of productivity, and too much land meaning laziness to exploit it intensively, that explains why the farms were so large in the Prairies.

Originally Posted by suburbanite

The U.S. is a population of over 300 million people yet there's a reason only 1 million of them live in Montana.

Yes, because Montana was populated rather late, and is far away from the main population centers. If Montana had been on the Eastern seaboard, settled since the 1600s, it would be far more populated.

Originally Posted by suburbanite

France's precarious position would have rendered them completely incapable of landing a force that ultimately burned down the White House or threatened to take New Orleans.

France landed a force that defeated the British Army and allowed the US to become independent, just as a reminder. Quand la France veut, elle peut.



And this below, by the way, is the largest French naval victory over the British, in 1781, right on North American home turf, 6,000 km from France (the blue standard, to the left, from where the flag of Québec comes from, was the flag of the French Royal Navy). The US navy was a joke back then compared to either the French or British navies. By 1790 the French Royal Navy was even larger than in 1781 due to the massive construction program that took place under Louis XVI, but all was ruined by the French Revolution (all the admirals and naval officers were royalists, and were decimated during the Revolution, or even switched to the British side as in the naval seaport Toulon whose royalist authorities opened the port to the British Royal Navy).

[suburbanite]

You're right, the French Canadians are the biggest demographic anomaly that we've ever seen, and they would have populated the North American heartland to an extent that none of the myriad other immigrant groups did due to their.... laziness and lack of productivity. Case closed

In regards to French naval power, what happened in 1805 again? The whole point is that in 1810 the French could do nothing to prevent the British from running ramshackle over her overseas colonies. They were not in a position to commit the resources or successfully sustain a transatlantic military theatre of operations. Napoleon already sold a swath of prime interior heartland where his French Canadian subjects could have multiplied like rabbits until they surpassed the population of Europe itself!

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

You're right, the French Canadians are the biggest demographic anomaly that we've ever seen

Indeed they are. From 70,000 in 1760 to more than 15 million in Canada and USA today. No other European group has reproduced as much. 2nd come the Russians, but at a distance from the French Canadians. It has been calculated if the French of France had reproduced at the same rate as the French Canadians, there would be 1 billion French people today.

So yes, a big demographic anomaly. That largely explains why they still exist today as a distinct people. It's a miracle of demography.

Originally Posted by suburbanite

In regards to French naval power, what happened in 1805 again? The whole point is that in 1810 the French could do nothing to prevent the British from running ramshackle over her overseas colonies. They were not in a position to commit the resources or successfully sustain a transatlantic military theatre of operations. Napoleon already sold a swath of prime interior heartland where his French Canadian subjects could have multiplied like rabbits until they surpassed the population of Europe itself!

Except if France had kept Canada 50 more years, the French Revolution wouldn't have happened the way it did, Napoleon wouldn't have happened, 1805 wouldn't have happened, etc, etc. The further we move in time, the less likely the actual history that took place as it did would have taken place in that alternate history, as it would have been superseded by other events and trends.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

You're right, the French Canadians are the biggest demographic anomaly that we've ever seen, and they would have populated the North American heartland to an extent that none of the myriad other immigrant groups did due to their.... laziness and lack of productivity. Case closed

In regards to French naval power, what happened in 1805 again? The whole point is that in 1810 the French could do nothing to prevent the British from running ramshackle over her overseas colonies. They were not in a position to commit the resources or successfully sustain a transatlantic military theatre of operations. Napoleon already sold a swath of prime interior heartland where his French Canadian subjects could have multiplied like rabbits until they surpassed the population of Europe itself!

France did hold on to lots of overseas possessions in the period from 1763 to the 1960s, and gained quite a few others during that time. Sometimes with the indifference of the British, and sometimes literally against the will of the British.

France was not all-powerful but the idea that it was always totally defenceless in the face of the will of the British Empire (which yes did reach its apogée in the late 1800s-early 1900s, in large part due to naval superiority) seems a bit far-fetched.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

What for? Can't see the point really (except if we are talking of immigrants to Acadie and Northern Ontario). But if we're talking of quotas of Francophone immigrants going to Toronto, Alberta, BC, it serves no purpose beyond some virtue-signaling.

Yeah. I am all for francophone immigration but Canada's efforts to send more francophone immigrants outside Quebec is basically buckshot (chevrotine) or like Lio likes to say, throwing wet spaghetti at the wall and hoping a few noodles will stick.

Only a small minority of French-speaking immigrants who go to the ROC will end up having francophone children or grandchildren. Many of them don't necessarily care about French and its future here. Which is fine. They don't have to care. It's just a useful skill they they happen to have in order to get in the country and build a new life in places like Toronto and Vancouver, which to them are often just another version of Anglo-America.

As a francophone originally from the ROC I full understand why the federal government is doing this, and why the communities that are beset by high degrees of assimilation are pressuring the feds to do it, because they want new blood.

But the interests of French in Canada and in North America would be better served if these people moved to Quebec instead, where there is nearly 999% probability that they and their descendants will end up joining the Canadian francophone population in some way or another.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

France did hold on to lots of overseas possessions in the period from 1763 to the 1960s, and gained quite a few others during that time. Sometimes with the indifference of the British, and sometimes literally against the will of the British.

France was not all-powerful but the idea that it was always totally defenceless in the face of the will of the British Empire (which yes did reach its apogée in the late 1800s-early 1900s, in large part due to naval superiority) seems a bit far-fetched.

He's the victim of what's called "teleology". People often have a teleological view of history, meaning that just because history happened in a certain way, they believe it was always meant to happen that way and would always have happened that way, completely disregarding the impact of random events and unforeseen causes on the way history happened.

For instance, with a teleological view of the French Revolution, the French Revolution was ALWAYS meant to happen, because of (aristocratic privileges, lack of wheat in 1789, etc, you name it), when in fact the French Revolution is the result of many causes and random events and could very well not have happened, like a plane crash, if not for a perfect alignment of improbable causes.

This is a common pitfall when thinking about history. We know how it ended, so we tend to think it was always going to end that way.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by Acajack

France did hold on to lots of overseas possessions in the period from 1763 to the 1960s, and gained quite a few others during that time. Sometimes with the indifference of the British, and sometimes literally against the will of the British.

France was not all-powerful but the idea that it was always totally defenceless in the face of the will of the British Empire (which yes did reach its apogée in the late 1800s-early 1900s, in large part due to naval superiority) seems a bit far-fetched.

It takes capability, and will. This conversation started on the premise that France held Canada into the 1800s. The war against America was fought on a razor's edge when Canada did have the support of the empire most capable of protecting its overseas empire. At that time France was all-consumed on the continent. In the period between 1800 and 1815, the British captured Martinque, Gaudeloupe, St. Lucia, and the Indian Ocean territories. The French Fleet was largely confined to port after 1805 and the resources were not there to maintain extensive overseas operations. Even when they were at peace in 1801, they failed to retake Saint Domingue, and shortly thereafter, sold their last major North American holding for pennies on the dollar to the U.S. I don't see any of these historical facts to be demonstrative of the will or capability needed to maintain large overseas colonies.

You have to go into far-flung alt histories like "The French Revolution wouldn't have happened if France held Quebec" to envision an outcome where early 19th century France was maintaining a strong transatlantic empire.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

He's the victim of what's called "teleology". People often have a teleological view of history, meaning that just because history happened in a certain way, they believe it was always meant to happen that way and would always have happened that way, completely disregarding the impact of random events and unforeseen causes on the way history happened.

\

Oh, you mean kind of like extrapolating French Canadian demographics based on a sample size of less than 100,000 people across 40 years and projecting it forwards 200 years across the second largest landmass in the world?

You started the alt history fantasies that were based on snapshots of what actually occurred.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yeah. I am all for francophone immigration but Canada's efforts to send more francophone immigrants outside Quebec is basically buckshot (chevrotine) or like Lio likes to say, throwing wet spaghetti at the wall and hoping a few noodles will stick.

Only a small minority of French-speaking immigrants who go to the ROC will end up having francophone children or grandchildren. Many of them don't necessarily care about French and its future here. Which is fine. They don't have to care. It's just a useful skill they they happen to have in order to get in the country and build a new life in places like Toronto and Vancouver, which to them are often just another version of Anglo-America.

As a francophone originally from the ROC I full understand why the federal government is doing this, and why the communities that are beset by high degrees of assimilation are pressuring the feds to do it, because they want new blood.

But the interests of French in Canada and in North America would be better served if these people moved to Quebec instead, where there is nearly 999% probability that they and their descendants will end up joining the Canadian francophone population in some way or another.

Send more to Nouveau Brunswick please... the Moncton<->Morocco flight isn't going to happen on it's own.

If Canada seriously upped immigration from Françafrique, I think Canada could be the first non European or South American country to win the Football ⚽️ World Cup.