Quebecois politics for Dummies (historical, between, young)

[Urban Peasant]

I'm wondering where do the French Huguenots fit into the story of Quebec's politics. Sure they were few in number in the first place but I'm sure a few settled in Quebec after the Edict of Nantes was revoked. Did they assimilate easily with the French Catholics, did they assimilate with the English Protestants, or were they split? I'm surprised if there were no French Protestant voices crying out that it was all right to be both French and Protestant in Canada's history. Or were they simply drowned out by the Catholic majority?

[2ner]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

I'm wondering where do the French Huguenots fit into the story of Quebec's politics. Sure they were few in number in the first place but I'm sure a few settled in Quebec after the Edict of Nantes was revoked. Did they assimilate easily with the French Catholics, did they assimilate with the English Protestants, or were they split? I'm surprised if there were no French Protestant voices crying out that it was all right to be both French and Protestant in Canada's history. Or were they simply drowned out by the Catholic majority?

Here's a short French documentary on Huguenots in Nouvelle-France and in Quebec:

https://youtu.be/c_8lQCRTclU

A Francophone Evangelical church was founded in Marieville in 1852. It is still an active church. This says a lot. Between the Conquest and the 1950s, you were considered a traitor if you were Francophone and practiced Protestantism.

[2ner]

In what ways are Quebeckers more politically conservative than Canadians in the ROC?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 2ner

In what ways are Quebeckers more politically conservative than Canadians in the ROC?

Generally I would say they are not, but that depends on one's definition of "conservative".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

I'm wondering where do the French Huguenots fit into the story of Quebec's politics. Sure they were few in number in the first place but I'm sure a few settled in Quebec after the Edict of Nantes was revoked. Did they assimilate easily with the French Catholics, did they assimilate with the English Protestants, or were they split? I'm surprised if there were no French Protestant voices crying out that it was all right to be both French and Protestant in Canada's history. Or were they simply drowned out by the Catholic majority?

What I recall from the history I've learned about these people...


The Catholic church played a huge role in France's New World colonies of course, but the territory was so vast and sparsely populated that perhaps the Huguenots thought it would be easier to escape the church's reach here.


In any event, the final outcome seems to be that those Huguenot Protestants who moved to New France may not have faced direct oppression, but the crushing Catholic demographics led most of them to eventually intermarry with Catholics, to the point where today there is no living memory of intergenerational "Protestant French Canadians" at all here.


There are some old stock French Canadians of non-Catholic faiths today, but these are the result of contemporary conversions, and not something that has been passed down from the French colonial era.


The only religious heritage that has survived from the French colonial era is Catholicism.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by Acajack

That's not exactly true.


Historical polling has pretty much always shown that the more a Quebec francophone is educated and white collar, the more likely they are to vote for the PQ and support sovereignty.


Age also enters into it. In the 1995 referendum, the highest Oui vote in any demographic was white collar professional francophones with university degrees between the ages of about 35 to 55.


Among francophones the Liberals do best among the really wealthy and self-employed people like business owners.


The Gatineau region as you say is an outlier where the PQ polls a lot lower than it does in similar francophone demographics elsewhere in the province. Keep in mind though that about a quarter of Gatineau's francophone population is Franco-Ontarian or of Franco-Ontarian origin. Another chunk is made up of Acadians from the Maritimes. In everyday life these people dovetail seemlessly with the Québécois population - everywhere except the voting booth.


Montreal's francophone chattering classes, creative class and BoBo (bourgeois bohémien) crowd is also a huge traditional PQ base.


Some of the traditional PQ base as described above has been drifting away recently, but by and large they haven't been going to the Liberals - they're going to Québec solidaire or the CAQ, which is more conservative fiscally than what we've been accustomed to in Quebec, but the CAQ also plays the identity reasonably well so it rivals the PQ on that front. (The CAQ's leader is a former PQ bigwig who 20 years ago prepared a hypothetical Year One budget for a sovereign Quebec.)

I understand that the Bloc Quebecois is allied with the PQ in many areas, but where are their distinctions between them politically?

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

I'm wondering where do the French Huguenots fit into the story of Quebec's politics. Sure they were few in number in the first place but I'm sure a few settled in Quebec after the Edict of Nantes was revoked. Did they assimilate easily with the French Catholics, did they assimilate with the English Protestants, or were they split? I'm surprised if there were no French Protestant voices crying out that it was all right to be both French and Protestant in Canada's history. Or were they simply drowned out by the Catholic majority?

More emigrating Huguenots went to South Africa, where they settled and assimilated into the Dutch Boer communities. You'll find white South Africans with surnames that parallel those, interestingly, of Quebecois:

Du Plessis (Duplessis)

du Toit (Dutoit)

du Pre (Dupre)

Viljoen (Villion)

are just a few.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by silverkris

More emigrating Huguenots went to South Africa, where they settled and assimilated into the Dutch Boer communities. You'll find white South Africans with surnames that parallel those, interestingly, of Quebecois:

Du Plessis (Duplessis)

du Toit (Dutoit)

du Pre (Dupre)

Viljoen (Villion)

are just a few.

And of course the (in)famous Eugene TerreBlanche. (I assume...)

[2ner]

Originally Posted by Acajack

And of course the (in)famous Eugene TerreBlanche. (I assume...)

... and the beautiful and talented Charlize Theron (but wait a minute, Theron is not really a Quebec name... my bad).

A lot also went to Charleston, SC and vicinity and were successful planters. I had a good friend in Atlanta with the name d'Olive (Dolive) who pronounced his name the French way even though his family had been in the South for generations. He hated it there and *escaped* to mythical California and loves it. I'm happy for him.

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by Acajack

And of course the (in)famous Eugene TerreBlanche. (I assume...)

Yes, unfortunately - kind of ironic that a direct translation of his name literally is "white land" - given his political stance.