Secondary 4 History of Québec and Canada key terms

An economic doctrine holding that a colony exists to supply cheap raw materials to the mother country and to buy its manufactured goods, so that wealth and a favourable trade balance flow to the metropole.

A landholding arrangement in New France in which a seigneur received a large tract from the crown and granted strips of it to censitaires, who owed annual dues, corvée labour, and loyalty in exchange for use of the land.

The tenant farmers of a seigneurie, who held land under a seigneur and paid rente and cens in cash or produce while owing specified days of unpaid labour each year.

Unpaid labour owed by habitant farmers to their seigneur or to the state, used for road building, bridge repair, and transport of goods and materials.

The commercial exchange of beaver and other pelts that anchored the economy of New France, linking Montreal merchants, voyageurs, and Indigenous hunting and trading networks across the interior.

Unlicensed French traders who travelled into Indigenous territories to obtain furs directly, often adopting Indigenous customs and languages, and whose activity bypassed official trading monopolies.

Hired canoe men who transported furs, trade goods, and supplies along the rivers and lakes of the interior, working under contract for Montreal merchants in the fur economy.

The administrative structure imposed on New France after 1663, replacing chartered companies with a governor, an intendant, and a sovereign council appointed by the king.

The royal official responsible for justice, police, and finance in New France, who managed the budget, granted seigneuries, regulated prices, and reported directly to the minister of the marine.

The governing body of New France from 1663 that registered royal edicts, heard appeals, and advised the governor and intendant, functioning as a combined court and administrative council.

Diplomatic and military partnerships, sealed by gift exchange and marriage ties, that allowed a small French population to secure furs, military support, and access to interior territories.

A 1701 treaty in which some forty Indigenous nations and New France agreed to end hostilities and share hunting territories, consolidating French alliances in the Great Lakes region.

The agreement ending the Seven Years' War by which France ceded Canada and most of its North American possessions to Britain, leaving New France's population under British rule.

The military defeat and transfer of New France to Britain between 1759 and 1763, which left a French-speaking Catholic population governed by new institutions and a foreign elite.

A British decree creating the Province of Quebec, imposing British law and institutions, and reserving western lands for Indigenous peoples, while restricting Catholic participation in public office.

A British statute that enlarged Quebec's territory, restored French civil law, and relaxed the oath of allegiance, allowing Catholics to hold office and reassuring the seigneurial and clerical elite.

A British law dividing Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada and granting each an elected assembly, alongside appointed legislative and executive councils, establishing representative government.

The principle that the executive must answer to the elected assembly rather than to the governor alone, won in the Province of Canada in 1848 and later extended to the Dominion.

Armed uprisings in Lower and Upper Canada by reformers demanding control over colonial revenues and executive appointments; their suppression led to the Durham Report and union.

A British law merging Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada with a single assembly, intended to assimilate French Canadians, and later made workable by equal representation and responsible government.

The union of British North American colonies into the Dominion of Canada in 1867 under the British North America Act, creating a federal system with divided powers.

The imperial statute that created the federal Dominion, assigning residual powers to Ottawa, listing provincial jurisdictions such as education and property, and guaranteeing minority language and school rights.

John A. Macdonald's program of protective tariffs, railway construction, and western settlement intended to build an industrial economy and bind the regions of Canada to central markets.

The settlement and incorporation of the prairies and British Columbia into Canada, driven by the railway, land surveys, and immigration, and displacing Métis and First Nations communities.

The Métis resistance of 1869 to 1870 against Canadian annexation of Rupert's Land, which produced the Manitoba Act and a province with limited French-language guarantees.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century shift to steel, electricity, chemicals, and mass production, which concentrated factories, capital, and population in Montreal and other urban centres.

The rapid growth of cities as rural residents and immigrants moved toward factory work, producing crowded neighbourhoods, public health crises, and new municipal services.

The organization of workers into unions to bargain collectively over wages, hours, and conditions, often encountering employer resistance and court injunctions in early twentieth-century Québec.

The controversy over compulsory military service in the First World War, which divided French and English Canadians and weakened national unity and the Conservative party in Québec.

The economic collapse of the 1930s that brought mass unemployment and relief measures, exposing the inadequacy of provincial and municipal welfare and prompting new state intervention.

The period of Maurice Duplessis's Union nationale governments, marked by conservative rural values, close ties to the Catholic Church, anti-union measures, and resistance to federal social programs.

The rapid modernization of Québec in the 1960s, when the state took over education and health, reduced Church influence, nationalized electricity, and promoted a new French-Canadian identity.

The withdrawal of religious institutions from control of schools, hospitals, and social services, transferring these responsibilities to the state and reducing clerical authority over daily life.

The kidnapping of a British diplomat and a provincial minister by the Front de libération du Québec, prompting the War Measures Act, mass arrests, and a lasting debate over civil liberties.

Québec's 1977 language law, known as Bill 101, making French the language of government, commerce, and education and restricting access to English schooling.

The political current seeking independence or greater autonomy for Québec, expressed through the Parti québécois and two referendums, in 1980 and 1995, both of which rejected sovereignty.

A document or artefact produced at the time under study, such as a letter, treaty, newspaper, or census, which offers direct evidence but reflects its author's perspective.

An interpretation written after the events by a historian or textbook author, synthesizing evidence and argument, and therefore valuable but dependent on the primary record.

The analysis of why events happened by distinguishing long-term structural conditions from immediate triggers and weighing the relative influence of economic, social, and political factors.

A method of comparing periods to identify what persisted and what was transformed, helping explain how institutions and social relations evolve rather than appear suddenly.