June 1966 — VOL. 47, No. 6 —
The Province of Quebec
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Many artists and poets have tried
to picture and describe the Province of Quebec, but it has
a charm that is beyond the expression of paint and words.
Quebec is made up of a thousand small things and sentiments.
It has been different from other provinces throughout Canada's
history, and it will continue to be different because it is
only at the beginning of its thrust toward economic maturity
whereas some other provinces are already far advanced.
Quebec is today an expectant province, looking forward to
satisfaction of its ambitions. The old agrarian society has
been broken away from; men and women whose fathers could scarcely
bear to travel beyond the sound of their village church bells
are now working in the towns and cities. From the insularity
of only twoscore years ago the province has opened its doors
to the world through inviting all nations to take part in
the World Fair in 1967. Urbanization and the rise of a vast
industrial complex have set in motion an irreversible process.
This is the largest province in Canada, 594,860 square miles,
more than double the size of Texas, equal to the combined
area of France, Spain and all Germany. Its last Census population
was 5,259,211, which was 29 per cent of Canada's total.
The characteristic vegetation of the greater part of Quebec
is forest. Occupied agricultural land totals 22,185 square
miles, while forest covers 378,125 square miles. The highest
mountain is Mount Jacques Cartier, 4,160 feet. There are four
lakes over 400 square miles. Quebec has a long sea frontage
on Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Ungava Bay and the Gulf of St.
Lawrence.
Because the province extends for more than twelve hundred
miles from south to north, the climate is extremely varied.
At Fort Chimo, on Ungava Bay, the season between frosts is
about 52 days; while at Sherbrooke, in the Eastern Townships,
it lasts about 130 days.
Railways and roads are pushing their fingers northward as
new sources of minerals are discovered and new areas of forest
opened up. People to develop the resources and to process
the products of mines and forests are increasing in number.
It is estimated that the population will have grown to 6,380,000
by 1971.
The St. Lawrence River
An explorer of 1663 wrote in his diary that there is no
other country in the world so well supplied with water. At
Île d'Orléans the earlier explorers had found
"the water begins to be fresh" ( they were entering the mainstream
of the great St. Lawrence River, the main geographical feature
of Quebec. Along it and its shores the life of Quebec has
been going on for more than four hundred years.
The principal agricultural area of the province lies in
the river valley and in the adjacent Eastern Townships, extending
from the river to the United States boundary. The south shore
is dotted with a string of small towns and villages dating
from the days of the first colony. Trading posts for widely
spread farms have become cities and towns.
Quebec City, the oldest national capital north of the Rio
Grande, was founded in 1608 when Champlain brought the first
colonists from France.
Knights of the sword and cross made it their headquarters
when they set out to conquer this vast land for king and church.
Fur traders centred their business here. Here were fought
many battles, notably the one which saw the death of the opposing
generals, now commemorated on the heights by one obelisk bearing
this inscription: "Valor gave them a common death, history
a common fame, and posterity a common monument." Today, the
city is an administrative, educational and religious centre.
Some eighty miles upstream is Trois-Rivières, founded
in 1634, an important trading centre from which set out the
La Vérendryes who were the first explorers to reach
the site of Winnipeg and the Black Hills of Wyoming. It is
one of the half dozen largest ports in Canada, the chief newsprint-producing
centre in the world, with a population of 55,000.
The Island of Montreal, 164 miles above Quebec, was visited
by Jacques Cartier, the Breton sea captain, in 1535. The first
settlers disembarked in May 1642, numbering among them two
courageous women, Jeanne Mance and Mme. de la Peltrie, the
first of whom established a hospital. At the end of the 1660's
the population had reached 600.
The geographical situation of Montreal at the junction of
the St. Lawrence, Ottawa and Richelieu rivers gave it significance
in a time when all traffic was by water. Today it is the main
economic centre, with a population of 2,000,000 in the metropolitan
area, representing ten per cent of the Canadian population.
But Montreal is noteworthy for more than its economic activity.
It is the largest French-speaking city in the world except
Paris. It is, of all North American cities, the city of debate
in which differently trained minds express themselves without
inhibition on all matters of interest socially, politically
and economically.
As to the river itself, it loses none of its importance
at Montreal, where it has already flowed a thousand miles
from the head of the lakes and has a thousand miles to roll
along before reaching the Atlantic Ocean.
In this journey the river falls 580 feet. A small canal
was built at Lachine in 1700 to eliminate the portage around
the rapids, and by 1850 vessels up to 140 feet long and nine
feet in draught could make the passage from Montreal to Lake
Erie. Today, the St. Lawrence Seaway, opened in the spring
of 1959, provides a channel 27 feet in depth from the Atlantic
Ocean to Duluth, Minnesota, at the head of the Great Lakes.
The upper St. Lawrence and the lakes are open to eighty per
cent of the world's salt-water fleets.
The impact of this seaway on Quebec ports has been great.
In 1964 there were 21 ports in Canada handling more than two
million tons of foreign and coastwise cargo. Of these, eight
were in the Province of Quebec, handling 44 per cent of the
total tonnage.
Exploration and development
All of this development began when Cartier sailed up the
great river in search of the Pacific. He was followed by Champlain,
who, whether he fought, explored, or colonized ( and he did
all three well ( did so as a crusader. Champlain was the true
father of Canada.
There were periods when both France and Britain doubted
the value of this new land. It was argued in the English Parliament
that Canada was not worth her upkeep, and Voltaire gave a
sumptuous banquet at his home in Paris to celebrate the take-over
by Britain of the troublesome dependency.
When Canada was ceded in 1763, France washed its hands of
the "few arpents of snow". Most of the military, the aristocracy
and the bureaucrats went back to France, leaving the Canadian
people to develop a personality of their own. After the French
Revolution, Quebec had less and less sympathy with old France,
and turned increasingly to its own resources and development.
The people retained their tradition of law and charity, and
they did not forget that they were the descendants of one
of the most cultured countries the world has ever known, but
the clear air and the wide spaces of this land gave them a
dynamic force that made them distinctive.
There have been ups and downs politically, first as the
debris of war was cleared away and then as the foundations
of economic and social life were laid. The colony struggled
along under provisional government, popular assemblies, legislative
union of Upper and Lower Canada, responsible government, and
finally reached a meeting of minds in a conference in Quebec
City in 1864 at which final resolutions recommending a federal
union were drafted and adopted.
The federal system of government demanded a compromise between
two sets of political forces: centralization of power and
provincial autonomy. The Canadian plan, in view of its special
circumstances, differed from the United States federal plan.
Whereas the latter left residual powers to the states, the
Canadian plan allotted specific areas of power to the provinces
and gave residual powers to the central government. As an
outcome, federal power in Canada has decreased, while in the
United States it has become very great.
The special minority position of Quebec was recognized by
writing into the British North America Act certain irreducible
obligations to the French-speaking province. It retained its
civil law, its religious liberty, equality of its language
in the Parliament of Canada, in the Legislature of Quebec,
and in the courts of the Dominion and Quebec province, and
jurisdiction over its own education system. This arrangement
was not, in the minds of the French Canadians, simply a federal
union, but a pact or treaty guaranteeing to each group the
right to its own faith, language, laws and customs.
Under the circumstances prevailing since the revolt of the
American colonies, continued partnership with English-speaking
Canada is the only guarantee a French Canadian has of being
able to maintain his cultural identity. "But by the same token,"
said an article in the Manchester Guardian, "English-speaking
Canada needs the French, or it, too, outnumbered and undistinguished
by a separate language, might be submerged by the Southern
giant."
Natural resources
It is part of the Quebec legend that its people displayed
from the first spectacular and dominant genius for agricultural
pioneering. The farmer who owned a small farm and worked it
with the aid of his family, was the incarnation of the simple,
honest, independent, healthy, happy human being. The ambition
of the Quebec farmer was to see his sons on reaching manhood
established with their families on farms clustered about his
own.
The time came, however, when the hard working farmer needed
cash crops to buy the appliances and comforts of life which
became available with the development of industry. The self-sufficiency
forced upon him by lack of transportation and markets became
unnecessary in an age of railways and roads.
These also lured his sons to the tinsel and glamour of towns
and cities. In 1941 the rural population of Quebec was 36.7
per cent; in 1961 it had fallen to 24.8 per cent. The agricultural
labour force was 12.5 per cent in 1956; in 1965 it was only
6 per cent.
To maintain agriculture as a going concern in the social
and economic structure of the province, the government is
working toward improvement of production and marketing through
the provision of farm credit, assistance to farmers in organizing
the collective commercialization of their products, the improvement
of education, and the encouragement of agricultural research.
Subsidies are provided to settlers and farmers in handicapped
rural areas for the construction of buildings, the acquiring
of stock, land clearing and development, and the transportation
of produce to market.
The Gaspé Peninsula is the home of the commercial
fishermen of Quebec. The government operates a network of
sixty cold storage plants for the freezing and preservation
of fish, with a daily freezing capacity of 500 tons and a
storage capacity of 25 million pounds. In addition, the government
owns and maintains 123 stations in small fishing ports where
fish is kept under proper conditions while awaiting transportation,
and it operates an artificial drying plant with a capacity
of three million pounds of fish annually.
Quebec has extremely valuable timber resources, the biggest
in Canada. Forest covers 242 million acres, of which 141 million
are productive and 86 million acres are being developed.
Minerals have a high place in the roster of resources, although
intensive prospecting did not start until the mid-19th century.
As late as 1900 the value of mineral production was only $1,670,000;
in 1965 it was $705 million, equal to 19 per cent of the Canadian
total.
The biggest deposits of asbestos in the world are in Quebec,
and output runs at about $120 million a year. The gold-copper
mine at Noranda opened in 1911. Most sensational, however,
was the discovery in 1937 of massive deposits of iron and
titanium in Northern Quebec. Estimates run all the way from
400 million tons of iron ore to 20,000 million tons. The deposits
were brought into production in 1954 following the building
of a 360-mile railway from the St. Lawrence River at Sept
Îles to Schefferville.
Water power has been important in Quebec since the earliest
days. The first plant in North America to use water as a source
of power was a mill built in 1691 at Petit Pré, near
Quebec, and in 1861 there were 344 mills using water as a
source of power. A new era dawned following the discovery
of electro-magnetic induction and the development of the dynamo.
By 1887 the city of Quebec was being supplied with hydro-electric
power, by the end of 1900 the power stations in Quebec province
were developing half Canada's total, and since 1926 this province
has remained constantly in the lead.
Quebec possesses nearly a third of the hydraulic resources
of Canada. Installed turbine capacity is about 47 per cent
of the country's total. Today's interest of power engineers
is centred upon the huge Manicouagan-Outardes hydro complex
now under construction. It will harness two rivers to provide
about six million kw. of hydro capacity.
Industry
Quebec was born in the country, but it is moving to the
city. Until 1914 agriculture provided 65 per cent of the provincial
product, forestry 25 per cent, and manufacturing less than
five per cent; in 1965 there were more than 12,000 industries,
employing some 475,000 persons, accounting for more than seventy
per cent of the gross value of Quebec's total production.
Discovery of enormous mineral wealth and the development
of hydro-electric energy contributed to the fact that between
1939 and 1950 the increase in industrial activity in Quebec
was ten times greater than in the whole of the previous century.
New capital has been brought in, new industries have been
attracted, secondary industry has been expanded. Just before
the Second World War total production amounted to only $1,500
million; in 1965 the total value of production of goods in
Quebec amounted to $14,013 million.
The most important of the processing industries in terms
of gross dollar value are pulp and paper, non-ferrous metals,
petroleum and meat-packing. The pulp and paper industry is
Quebec's major manufacturing industry. Shipments have represented
more than eight per cent of total Canadian shipments. Abundance
of power has led to the establishment of a great aluminum
plant at Arvida, based on bauxite imported by ship up the
River Saguenay.
Developing the economy
To attain the desired high level of living requires prompt
and vigorous attention to building and sustaining the economy.
A few years ago Quebec passed from the era of manifestos
into one of blueprints. An Economic Advisory Council was set
up to prepare a six-year plan of regional development to extend
from 1965 to 1970, making the most complete use of material
and human resources.
In 1966 the government announced its intention to divide
the province into ten regions and 25 sub-regions. These new
districts will create poles of growth around which regional
economic development will be centred.
Man-power in the province has increased from 1,591,000 in
1955 to 2,019,000 in 1965, and average weekly wages have risen
from $58.62 to $88.71.
It is evident from all this that the fundamental fact about
Quebec today is that it is in transition. The Second World
War brought the full impact of the industrial revolution to
a region which had long escaped that profoundly disturbing
social process.
Since then an ardent realism has grown in the minds of young
people along the St. Lawrence River. As the Mayor of Montreal
told a Canadian Club meeting: "The younger generation wants
to prove by new departures and success that being French does
not consist only in a collection of moving traditions and
touching folklore songs, but that it may be translated into
a sequence of undertakings and of rewarding successes, adapted
to twentieth century mentality in the field of ideas and that
of works."
Culture
The fact that there are two cultural groups in Canada is
an element of distinction. The presence of French culture
gives Canada individuality. It helps to set Canada apart from
the all-pervasive American civilization.
No one should think of French and English as foreign languages,
but as Canadian languages. French-Canadian culture is not
just the spoken language; it is also the over-all mentality
and the behaviour of a whole group. "Culture" ( or "intellectual
personality" ( is made up of many things: religion, politics,
education, tradition, memories and aspirations. The French-Canadian
culture has expanded sharply so as to recognize and accept
industrialization as part of today's civilization. The ecumenical
movement has animated the churches with a breath of brotherhood
and understanding. Education has broadened the horizon and
has made Quebec part of the world.
In common with other under-industrialized countries, Quebec
has marked recent years by intensified action in support of
the public schools system and in the creation of specialized
institutions to meet the constantly changing needs of society.
By the mid-1960's Quebec had some 6,000 elementary and secondary
schools with about 1,500,000 pupils; six universities; 15
schools of agriculture; 65 technical schools; about forty
schools of household education, and a number of schools for
the graphic arts, applied arts, textiles, paper making and
mechanics.
The universities, always highly regarded, are also on the
march. The University of Montreal has one of Canada's largest
computer centres and its Institute of Experimental Medicine
and Surgery has achieved international repute. McGill University
has become one of the leading educational centres of aerospace
research, and its Neurological Institute and Allan Memorial
Institute of Psychiatry have established themselves as world
leaders in their fields.
Arts and crafts
By the seventeenth century an artistic tradition was firmly
planted on Canadian soil, and a remarkable growth and flowering
took place during the next two hundred years. It embraced
painting, decorative arts, silver-work, architecture, and
a brilliant school of wood sculpture. It was not a pale copy
of what was being done in Europe, but a uniquely Canadian
artistic expression, moulded by climate, the life of the people,
and a genuine feeling for beauty.
As early as 1668 Laval, the first bishop of Quebec, established
a school of arts and crafts at St. Joachim. Today, the French
Canadians are eminent in music, literature, sculpture, drama,
painting, and ballet, and they are progressing under guidance
of the Department of Cultural Affairs, established in 1961.
A comprehensive résumé of the cultivation
of the arts and crafts is given in The Arts in Canada,
an illustrated book available from the Queen's Printer, Ottawa
(120 pages, $1.50).
Quebec is on the march
Life in Quebec in the sixties has a new roundness, three
dimensions, instead of the photographic flatness seen by observers
up until a few years ago. Nothing is static, but moving.
Here is a place where three distinct populations, French-Canadian,
British, and continental European, mingle in American-type
surroundings.
From their farm homes, suburban bungalows and apartment
windows they look back over six thousand years of civilization,
four hundred of them participated in by Canada, a hundred
of them marked by a united Canada.
There have been differences of opinion about this and that,
but even our greatest clashes have been ladylike compared
with those of many other nations.
Now Quebec is moving into the second century of Confederation
with confidence, exulting in the progress she has made in
coping with changing world conditions.
Quebec, like all the rest of Canada, will benefit from the
renewal of the democratic spirit evident in centres all across
the country. It is based on respect for the rights of the
human person, on the tolerance necessary for any dialogue
between men, and on the concern for the common good which
prompted the provinces to get together in 1867.
As the Quebec Royal Commission of Inquiry on Education said
in its report: "The responsibility of the democratic State
consists in allowing diversity while avoiding chaos, in respecting
all rights while preventing abuses, in guaranteeing freedom
within the boundaries of the common good."
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