Essay/Term paper: Quebec, the province, the people, the history

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Political Science

Quebec, The Province, The People, The History


Quebec is a province in eastern Canada, bordered on the north by Hudson
Strait and Ungava Bay; on the east by Labrador (Which is a part of Newfoundland),
the Strait of Belle Isle, and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; on the south by New
Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Ontario; and on the west
by Ontario, James Bay, and Hudson Bay.

The name Quebec is derived from an Algonquian term for "place where the
river narrows," referring to the Saint Lawrence River near the site of present-
day Quebec City, the capital of the province.

Quebec is sometimes called "the Storied Province," Quebec became part of
the Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, as one of the four original
provinces.

The province of Quebec was first colonized by France and was formally
acquired by Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. The mass majority of
Quebec's population today use French as their first language. Beginning in the
1960s the Quebecois (French-speaking residents of Quebec) made strong efforts to
preserve their French heritage as well as to gain additional powers for the
province, which led to conflicts with the national government that have yet to
be fully resolved. This is apparent in the recent "Referendum" where
theQuebecois tried to get Quebec special provincial concederations based on the
fact the mass majority of Quebec residents speak French.

Quebec is the largest of all the Canadian provinces. Its large area of
1,540,680 sq km (594,858 sq MI) accounts for 15.5 percent of Canada's total area
and includes 183,890 sq km (71,000 sq MI) of inland freshwater surface. This is
a major draw for Industry in Quebec. Elevations in Quebec range from sea level
to 1622 m (5322 ft), atop Mont D'Iberville in the Torngat Mountains in the
northeast. Anticosti Island and the Magdalen Islands, (which are both in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence), are part of Quebec, which has a tidal shoreline of some
13,775 km (some 8560 MI).

Montreal is the leading industrial and commercial center and largest
city in the province of Quebec.

The climate of Quebec varies drastically. Quebec's climate is effected
by regional variations in altitude and by the pce's northern location, and its
exposed position between the cold waters of Hudson Bay and the cold ocean
currents along the Labrador coast. Montreal has an average January temperature
of about -9° C (about 16° F) and an average July temperature of about 22° C
(about 72° F). The recorded temperatures in the province have ranged from -54.4°
C (-65.9° F), in 1923 at Doucet in the south, to 40° C (104° F), in 1921 at
Ville Marie in the southwest.

According to the 1991 census, Quebec had a population of 6,895,963
people, an increase of 5.6 percent over 1986. The population density in 1991 was
about 4 persons per sq km (12 per sq MI); the distribution of population,
however, was uneven, with the majority concentrated in the extreme southeast of
Quebec, mainly due to extreme temperature in the north. French was the main
native language of about 81% of the people; about 9% had English as their only
native language. Most of the English-speaking people live in Montreal and the
Eastern Townships, because English is very common here. Quebec's largest cities
are: Montreal, the largest city in Canada; Laval; Quebec City, the provincial
capital; Longueuil; Gatineau; and Montreal-Nord.