French-Language Speakers
French-speaking Canadians are largely concentrated in the Province
of Quebec. What percentage of the Quebec population speaks
French? What does the height of each of the bars represent? What percentage
of Canada's total population is found in
Quebec?
Answers:
- 81 percent of the people in Quebec speak French
[
Statistics
Canada provides the actual numbers.]
- the length of the bar in each province indicates the percentage of the
total Canadian population (e.g., Ontario has 36 percent)
- Quebec's population is 27 percent of Canada's total population
Separatists want Quebec to become an independent country.
In October 1995, the Quebec government held a referendum whether or
not Quebec should secede from Canada and become an independent country. The
overall vote was 50.58 percent "NO" and 49.42 percent "YES" --
a switch of 25,000 votes would have led to separation. French-speaking whites voted 60 percent for independence -- mostly in
the countryside and smaller cities and Quebec
City (the "YES" vote is shown in purple); English-speakers and
immigrants, about 18 percent of the population, voted solidly "No," who
live disproportionally in Montreal
(the "NO" vote is shown in blue) and on the Ile de Montreal. People who
voted against independence would want to be excluded, even if this were legally
not possible. Imagine
what the boundaries of an independent Quebec would look like if communities
could determine the boundary: Would the boundary
run through individual cities, neighborhoods, and apartment
buildings?!
Native people, or First Nation people as they call themselves
in Canada, also want more self-determination. The federal
government has finally responded by creating
a new territory. Frobisher Bay, now called
Iqaluit, become the capital of Canada's new Arctic territory, Nunavut,
on April
1, 1999 -- the language of the Inuit a
"place of difficult landings." Nunavut will be North America's boldest experiment
in aboriginal self-government. One is a small and youthful population (half the 25,000 are aged under 25)
and spread over one-fifth of
Canada's land area.
Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 30 May 1996; last revised on 09 March 2005
.
