French Canadian

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"Canadiens" redirects here. For the hockey team, see Montreal Canadiens.

For linguistic uses, see Canadian French.

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French Canadians are inhabitants of Canada who can trace their ancestry and cultural identity to colonists from France who settled the area that is now Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island during Canada's 17th and 18th century colonial period. Most are now located in Quebec, New Brunswick(the only bilingual province in Canada), Manitoba and Ontario, although they are present in smaller numbers throughout Canada. For many contemporary Quebecers, the term has been replaced by "Québécois" (or "Quebecer") since the 1960s Quiet Revolution.

Six million of Canada's French speakers are found in the province of Quebec, where they constitute the majority language group, and another one million are distributed throughout the rest of Canada. Roughly 31% of Canadian citizens are French-speaking and 25% are of French-Canadian descent. Not all French speakers are of French descent, especially in modern-day Quebec, and not all people of French-Canadian heritage are exclusively or primarily French-speaking.

Franco-Canadian is a similar term but does not imply longstanding ancestry on Canadian soil. It is sometimes used to designate recent immigrants from France or other French-speaking countries. Francophone cultures are an integral part of Canadian culture and of Canadian literature.

1 French Canadian groups
- 1.1 Quebec
- 1.2 Elsewhere in Canada
2 History
3 Modern usage
4 Organizations
- 4.1 National
5 French-Canadian flags
6 See also

[edit] French Canadian groups

French Canadians may be grouped geographically by their province of origin:

Québécois(e), province of Quebec (many no longer self-identify as French Canadian)
Franco-Terreneuvians, province of Newfoundland and Labrador
Franco-Ontarians, province of Ontario
Franco-Manitobans, province of Manitoba
Fransaskois, province of Saskatchewan
Franco-Albertans, province of Alberta
Franco-Columbians, province of British Columbia
Franco-Yukonnais, territory of Yukon
Franco-Tenois, territory of Northwest Territories
Franco-Nunavois, territory of Nunavut

The Acadians in the Maritime Provinces and the Métis are not classified as French Canadians, but as distinct francophone peoples.

There is also a Franco-American community in the United States, particularly in New England, but also in Michigan and the Midwest. Acadians have settled on the border between Maine and New Brunswick; also, Cajuns in Louisiana stem primarily from Acadian populations deported from Nova Scotia in the 1750's. In L'avenir du français aux États-Unis, Calvin Veltman finds that since Canadian French has been so widely abandoned in the United States, the term French Canadian is there understood in ethnic rather than linguistic terms.

[edit] Quebec

French Canadians in Quebec often use Québécois (masculine) or Québécoise (feminine) to express their cultural and national identity, rather than Canadien français. Francophones who self-identify as Québécois and do not have French Canadian ancestry may not recognize themselves in the "French Canadian" designation and those who do have French or French Canadian ancestry, but who support Quebec sovereignty, may find Canadien français to be archaic or even pejorative. This is a reflection of the strong social, cultural, and political ties that most Quebeckers of French-Canadian origin, who constitute a majority of francophone Quebeckers, maintain within Quebec. It has given Québécois an ambiguous meaning which has often played out in political issues, as all public institutions attached to the Quebec state refer to all Quebec citizens as Québécois.

[edit] Elsewhere in Canada

There are many urban and small centres in Canada outside of Quebec that have significant populations of French Canadians. They include, but are not restricted to the following;

Here, francophones have enjoyed minority language rights under the Canadian Constitution since 1982, protecting them from provincial governments that have historically been indifferent or downright hostile towards their presence. Consequently, French Canadians outside Quebec may more readily identify as French Canadian, although this identification generally complements, rather than replacing, an identification with their provincial grouping. This may also vary from province to province — Franco-Ontarians, for example, use their provincial label far more frequently than Franco-Columbians do.

[edit] History

The French were the first Europeans to permanently colonize what is now Quebec. (See French colonization of the Americas.) Their colonies of New France stretched across what today are the Maritime provinces, southern Quebec and Ontario, as well as the entire Mississippi River Valley. The first permanent European settlement in Canada was at Port Royal in 1605. The territories of New France were Canada, Acadia, and Louisiana. The inhabitants of Canada called themselves the Canadiens, the inhabitants of Acadia, the Acadiens, and the inhabitants of Louisiana, the Louisianais. Many French Canadians are the descendants of the King's Daughters of this era.

After the 1760 British conquest of New France in the French and Indian War, the French-Canadian population remained important in the life of the colonies.

The British, who had gained Acadia by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), deported 75% of the Acadian population to other British colonies at the beginning of the French and Indian War. The French Canadians escaped this fate in part because of the capitulation act that made them British subjects. It took the 1774 Quebec Act for them to regain the French civil law system, and in 1791 French Canadians in Lower Canada were introduced to the British parliamentary system when an elected Legislative Assembly was created.

The Legislative Assembly having no real power, the political situation degenerated into the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838, after which Lower Canada and Upper Canada were unified. One of the motivations for the union was to limit French Canadian political power. After many decades of British immigration, the Canadiens became a minority in the Province of Canada in the 1850s.

French-Canadian contributions were essential in securing responsible government for The Canadas and in undertaking Canadian Confederation. However, over the course of the late 19th and 20th centuries, French Canadians' discontent grew with their place in Canada. (See Quebec, History of Canada and Politics of Canada.)

During the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, approximately 1 million French Canadians emigrated from the province of Quebec to settle in the United States (principally New England). The reason for this exodus was mostly economic, though also political.

Since 1968, French has been one of Canada's two official languages. It is the sole official language of Quebec and one of the official languages of New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. The dialects of French spoken in Canada are quite distinct from those of France. See French in Canada.

[edit] Modern usage

In English usage, the terms for provincial subgroups, if used at all, are usually defined solely by province of residence, with all of the terms being strictly interchangeable with French Canadian. Although this remains the more common usage in English, it is considered outdated to many Canadians of French descent, especially in Quebec. Most francophone Canadians who use the provincial labels identify with their province of origin, even if it isn't the province in which they currently reside; for example, a Québécois who moved to Manitoba would not change their own self-identification to Franco-Manitoban.

Increasingly, provincial labels are used to stress the linguistic and cultural as opposed to ethnic and religious nature of French-speaking institutions and organizations. The term "French Canadian" is still used in historical and cultural contexts, or when it is necessary to refer to Canadians of French-Canadian collectively, such as in the name and mandate of a national organizations which serve minority francophone communities across Canada. Francophone Canadians of non-French-Canadian origin such as immigrants from francophone countries are not usually designed by the term "French Canadian"; the more general term "francophones" is used for French-speaking Canadians across all ethnic origins.

[edit] Organizations

[edit] National

[edit] French-Canadian flags

Franco-Albertains	Quebec	Acadia	Franco-Manitobains
Franco-Ontarian	Franco-Terreneuviens	Franco-Yukonnais	Franco Tenois
Fransaskois	Franco-Nunavois	Franco-Colombiens