AHC: English-Speaking Quebec

The land was never the problem, it was the ability to get goods to market. British settlers wanted to be able to make money (so did the French), but the big difference was the English had other places to go that spoke English, where the French didn't. The segneurial system favoured whoever had the most cash, the English, and the French figured out early on that any opening of new land opened it up to more English settlement which is why they continually battled the legislature over development money for roads and canals. If the land opens up earlier, the British settlers will come in and drown out the French. Not everywhere in Lower Canada, but Montreal and the surrounding area will be solidly Anglo by 1880 as you get further East the Anglo numbers will decline until Quebec City which would be a mixture of French and English.

Would that really happen? Why wouldn't French Canadian migrants take advantage of the newly-opened lands in Lower Canada, too?
 
Would that really happen? Why wouldn't French Canadian migrants take advantage of the newly-opened lands in Lower Canada, too?

French demographics favour slow growth. The British can get extra migrants whenever they want, the French Canadians can't just make up ten thousand migrants on a dime. And even if they do, the Brits will just outspend them.
 
French demographics favour slow growth. The British can get extra migrants whenever they want, the French Canadians can't just make up ten thousand migrants on a dime. And even if they do, the Brits will just outspend them.

As early as the 1820s, French Canadians were starting to leave the St. Lawrence heartlands in large numbers for land elsewhere. It seems a bit implausible to imagine that British immigrants will come to a territory immediately adjoining these heartlands and always, automatically, enduringly, outnumber the French Canadians. Where are the French Canadians to go, after all?
 
As early as the 1820s, French Canadians were starting to leave the St. Lawrence heartlands in large numbers for land elsewhere. It seems a bit implausible to imagine that British immigrants will come to a territory immediately adjoining these heartlands and always, automatically, enduringly, outnumber the French Canadians. Where are the French Canadians to go, after all?

The same places they went OTL, further west, New England and the cities.

The only reason they got the land in OTL is because it was deemed suboptimal at the time of settlement and could be gotten cheaply. If the St. Lawrence canal exists, the land becomes much more valuable and more Anglo settlers will move in before the French Canadians are entrenched there. The process has to be completed prior to 1840 otherwise the French Canadians will "win" the land race. So assuming an 1812 victory, the canal is finished in 1821 and an expanded Great Migration it's doable.

This will only affect the areas around Montreal, western Lower Canada and partially Quebec City. But if Montreal remains solidly Anglo and a terminus for Great Lakes shipping it could have enough demographic clout to push Anglos into majority territory (though not geographic majority).
 
The same places they went OTL, further west, New England and the cities.

The only reason they got the land in OTL is because it was deemed suboptimal at the time of settlement and could be gotten cheaply. If the St. Lawrence canal exists, the land becomes much more valuable and more Anglo settlers will move in before the French Canadians are entrenched there. The process has to be completed prior to 1840 otherwise the French Canadians will "win" the land race. So assuming an 1812 victory, the canal is finished in 1821 and an expanded Great Migration it's doable.

This will only affect the areas around Montreal, western Lower Canada and partially Quebec City. But if Montreal remains solidly Anglo and a terminus for Great Lakes shipping it could have enough demographic clout to push Anglos into majority territory (though not geographic majority).

If we envision a US Quebec or an averted American Revolution, it is very possible immigrant access to the Midwest will be via the St Lawrence rather than New York. A constant stream of immigrants passing through would make Quebec and Montreal much more multilingual, which favours English winning out in the longer run.
 
If we envision a US Quebec or an averted American Revolution, it is very possible immigrant access to the Midwest will be via the St Lawrence rather than New York. A constant stream of immigrants passing through would make Quebec and Montreal much more multilingual, which favours English winning out in the longer run.

If we imagine a US Quebec, or an averted American Revolution, then from the start you will be assuming substantially less Anglo immigration in Canada from the start. There will certainly be no equivalent of the Loyalists' settlement in Upper Canada in the 1780s to preempt French Canadian migration upstream the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, for instance. Until the Anglo wave of settlement reached the Great Lakes in the 1820s, huge swathes of the Midwest remained Canadien-majority, Détroit staying a mostly Canadien settlement in that decade. The Canadiens in either scenario, in less direct contact with Anglo settlement, would be in a better situation than OTL.

There may well be scenarios in which more direct control and settlement by an Anglo power early enough may be able to preempt natural Canadien growth. Maybe: The Eastern Townships in OTL Lower Canada starts off as a purely Anglo settlement, but over the course of the 19th century became mostly Francophone simply because Anglo migrants preferred different jurisdictions.
 
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