French and English Canadian Contacts and Institutional Change

Abstract

The population of the Eastern Townships of the province of Quebec has been growing steadily since this area was first settled in the early nineteenth century, but its composition has been gradually changing from English-speaking to French-speaking Canadians. This change has been due to urban and industrial forces which have both influenced the English Canadians to leave the Townships and the French Canadians to use the area as a new frontier for their surplus population. The impact of these forces affected the English, the first settlers, sooner than the French. As early as 1860, influences stemming from the cities gradually caused drastic changes in their way of life. These included a declining birth-rate, mechanization of farms, and ambitions for a higher and more sophisticated standard of living. Also, the agricultural products of the English Canadians entered the wider provincial and national markets before those of the French, another factor influential in changing their mode of life. This earlier orientation of the English-speaking group to urban patterns has caused them to move slowly out of the Townships to the more urbanized parts of Canada. Census figures show that this movement has been going on since 1861. At the same time, French Canadians have been steadily moving in, so that now the 12 counties comprising the Eastern Townships are from 70 to 99 per cent French.