Secondary 4 History of Québec and Canada cheat sheet

Samuel de Champlain founded Québec in 1608; the colony grew slowly, reaching roughly 70,000 inhabitants by 1760 against about 1.5 million in the British colonies.

Mercantilism: the colony existed to supply furs and fish to France and to buy French manufactures; trade was channelled through a monopoly company until royal control in 1663.

The seigneurial system granted land in long rectangular lots along the St. Lawrence; the seigneur owed fealty and rent (cens et rentes) to the crown and granted land to censitaires who paid dues and worked the corvée.

The fur trade depended on Indigenous partners and middlemen; the Wendat (Huron) alliance collapsed with the 1648–1650 Iroquois wars, and the Great Peace of Montréal in 1701 ended decades of conflict with the Five Nations.

Royal administration from 1663: a governor (military and diplomacy), an intendant (justice, finance, police) and a sovereign council appointed by the king; the bishop held strong moral authority.

The Catholic Church controlled education, hospitals and parish records; the tithe (dîme) supported the clergy, and Protestant worship was effectively banned after 1627.

The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) ceded Acadia, Newfoundland and Hudson Bay to Britain; the Seven Years' War ended with the Capitulation of Montréal (1760) and the Treaty of Paris (1763).

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 renamed the colony the Province of Quebec, imposed British criminal and civil law, promised an elected assembly, and reserved western lands for Indigenous peoples.

The Quebec Act (1774) restored French civil law, removed the oath denying papal authority so Canadiens could hold office, kept the seigneurial system, and enlarged the colony to the Ohio Valley.

The Constitutional Act (1791) split the colony into Lower Canada (French civil law, seigneurial tenure) and Upper Canada (English law, freehold tenure), each with an appointed legislative council and an elected assembly.

The 1837–1838 Rebellions led by Papineau (Lower Canada) and Mackenzie (Upper Canada) were defeated; Lord Durham's 1839 report recommended uniting the two colonies and assimilating the Canadiens.

The Act of Union (1840, in force 1841) created the Province of Canada with an equal number of seats for Canada East and Canada West, making French Canadians a minority in a single legislature.

Responsible government was won in 1848–1849 when Lord Elgin accepted the principle that the executive must hold the confidence of the elected assembly; the Rebellion Losses Bill sparked the burning of the Parliament in Montréal.

The 1840s–1860s saw the abolition of seigneurial tenure (1854) and the rise of partisan newspapers and political parties (Bleus, Rouges, Conservatives, Reformers).

The British North America Act (1867) joined Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; section 91 gave residual powers to Ottawa and section 92 listed provincial powers, with section 93 protecting denominational schools.

The National Policy of John A. Macdonald (1879) combined protective tariffs, railway construction and immigration to the West; the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed in 1885.

The Métis resisted survey and settlement: Louis Riel's provisional government (1869–1870) produced the Manitoba Act, and the North-West Resistance of 1885 ended with Riel's trial and hanging.

The Indian Act (1876) consolidated federal control over First Nations status, land and governance; the numbered treaties of the 1870s ceded prairie lands.

Honoré Mercier founded the Parti national and led Quebec 1887–1891, defending provincial autonomy against federal centralization.

The Manitoba Schools Question (1890–1896) abolished French-language and Catholic school funding; Wilfrid Laurier's compromise of 1896 restored limited denominational instruction.

French Canadians numbered about 1.1 million by 1891; emigration to New England mills drained the population, prompting colonization movements toward the Laurentians and Abitibi.

The second industrial revolution brought pulp and paper, aluminium (Shawinigan, 1901), asbestos mining (Thetford Mines) and hydroelectricity; foreign capital, mainly American and English-Canadian, financed it.

Montréal became Canada's financial and industrial metropolis; the population of Québec passed 2 million by 1931, with over half urban.

Immigration was directed largely to the West; in Québec, Jewish, Italian, Chinese and Eastern European immigrants settled in Montréal, while French Canadians supplied cheap labour to factories.

The Catholic unions (CTCC, founded 1921) rivalled international unions; the 1937 Padlock Law of Duplessis targeted communist organizing, and the 1949 Asbestos strike marked a turning point in labour militancy.

Conscription crises: the Military Service Act (1917) divided the country, and the 1942 plebiscite saw French Canadians vote heavily against conscription.

Women won the federal vote in 1918 and the Québec provincial vote in 1940; the 1929 Persons Case declared women 'persons' eligible for Senate appointment.

The Great Depression hit Montréal hard; relief camps, the Bennett New Deal (1935) and the Rowell-Sirois Commission (1937–1940) reshaped federal-provincial fiscal relations.

Maurice Duplessis and the Union nationale governed 1944–1959, promoting rural tradition, foreign investment and provincial autonomy while opposing federal spending power.

The Church ran schools and hospitals under Duplessis; the 1949 Asbestos strike and the 1950s Refus global manifesto signalled growing dissent among artists and intellectuals.

The Quiet Revolution began with Jean Lesage's Liberals in 1960: nationalization of hydroelectricity into Hydro-Québec (1963), creation of a Ministry of Education (1964) and the Caisse de dépôt (1965).

The Parent Report (1963–1966) led to free, compulsory, secular public schooling and the creation of CEGEPs (1967).

The welfare state expanded: hospital insurance (1961) and the Québec Pension Plan (1965) were created alongside federal programs.

The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963) and the 'Maîtres chez nous' slogan reflected rising Québec nationalism; the RIN was founded in 1960.

The 1968 founding of the Parti québécois by René Lévesque and the 1969 Official Languages Act set the stage for sovereignty debates.

The October Crisis of 1970: the FLQ kidnapped James Cross and Pierre Laporte; the War Measures Act was invoked on 5 October 1970, and Laporte was killed.

The Charter of the French Language (Bill 101, 1977) made French the language of government, work and education, restricted English schooling, and was later limited by court rulings under the Canadian Charter (1982).

The 1980 referendum on sovereignty-association was rejected 59.6% to 40.4%; the 1995 referendum was rejected 50.6% to 49.4%.

Constitutional attempts failed: the Victoria Charter (1971), the Meech Lake Accord (1987, failed 1990) and the Charlottetown Accord (1992, rejected by referendum).

The Constitution Act, 1982, patriated the constitution and added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms without Québec's signature; the 1998 Supreme Court Reference on Secession ruled unilateral secession illegal.

The Oka Crisis (1990) over a Mohawk land claim highlighted Indigenous land rights; the 2002 Paix des Braves agreement between Québec and the Cree addressed hydroelectric development in James Bay.

Globalization reshaped Québec's economy toward services, aerospace and information technology; the 2019 Bill 21 on religious symbols and Bill 96 (2022) on French language remain contested.

Demographics: high birth rates under the French Regime gave way to falling fertility after 1960; Québec's population reached about 8.5 million by 2021, with immigration now the main source of growth.

Religion: the Church dominated education, health and charity until the 1960s; Mass attendance fell sharply after the Quiet Revolution, and the 1990s saw the end of confessional school boards (replaced in 1998).

Women: excluded from the vote until 1940 (provincial), they entered the workforce en masse after 1945; the 1964 Married Women's Property Act ended the husband's control of family property.

Labour: the 1944 Labour Relations Act legalized unions; the 1977 Labour Code added anti-strike-breaker provisions and the right to refuse unsafe work.

Education: the 1961 Royal Commission on Education led to the Parent Report and universal secondary schooling; literacy and university attendance rose sharply.

Cultural expression: from the 1948 Refus global manifesto to the 1970s chansonniers (Félix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault) and the rise of Québec cinema and theatre.

Indigenous peoples: the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement (1975) was the first modern treaty, followed by the 1978 Naskapi agreement and the 2002 Paix des Braves.

Primary sources are produced in the period studied (letters, laws, newspapers, census); secondary sources interpret them later (textbooks, monographs, documentaries).

Source criticism asks: who produced it, when, for what audience, with what purpose, and what is omitted or biased.

Chronology: place events on a timeline and distinguish cause (conditions producing change) from consequence (outcomes) and from mere correlation.

Causality: weigh long-term structural factors (economy, demography) against short-term triggers (strikes, elections, wars).

Continuity and change: identify what persists (seigneurial dues, Church influence) versus what transforms (language of work, school system).

An evidence-based argument states a thesis, supports it with cited documents, acknowledges counter-evidence, and concludes by weighing the evidence.

Quantitative documents (census tables, graphs) must be read for units, scale, dates and source; a change in scale can reverse an apparent trend.