If you look at the flag of the province of quebec, it's pretty obvious that francophones are the predominant ethnic group among its population. What if for whether reasons that would have happened post 1840s, modern days quebeckers were predominantly anglophones ?
The Challenge: Create a alternate provincial flag for a canadian province of Quebec that represent the fact that francophones are, at best, a small minority.
The Challenge: Create a alternate provincial flag for a canadian province of Quebec that represent the fact that francophones are, at best, a small minority.
Entry 1 said:There's no one clear POD, more like a number of small changes. First, the Continental Army does even better in the American Revolutionary War and the gains from the Treaty of Paris include a large chunk of the OTL Southern Ontario as well.
This means that the loyalists fleeing to Canada are set to arrive right at the heart of Quebec and the tensions rising from the conflict over language and legal system shape up to be significantly worse. Unsurprisingly, the British administration sides more with the anglophones and the rights of francophones are curtailed bit by bit over decades-long cycles of resentment, rebellion and repression.
Consequently, the francophone Canadian emigration to the United States which was already a major demographic factor in OTL, becomes a veritable flood in TTL. During the 19th century, more than half of the francophone population leave Canada. Among other weird issues, the US states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island now have significant francophone minorities, or in the case of the first two, actual minority-majorities.
By the second half of the 20th century, the francophone population of Quebec province is only somewhere between 20-30%. Although French is again one of the official languages of the province, this is regarded by most Canadians as a quaint historical oddity. Indeed, the French past has now acquired almost a romanticized aura. Of course, this also ignores most of the injustices of the past, much to the chagrin of remaining French Canadians.
Thus, when the provincial flag for Quebec was chosen, the design incorporating both French and English symbols became an unanimous favorite and was adopted with almost no legislative debate.
The flag is a red field with the royal Arms of France in the canton, charged in the fly with the golden Lion of England.
Entry 2 said:The Province of Saint Laurence
With the adoption of the Maple Ensign as the Canadian Confederation’s national flag, the public’s attention was drawn to those of the provinces.
The Province of Saint-Laurence, formerly Canada East or Quebec, in particular had a highly vocal discussion involving its Francophone minority who were strongly against overt Anglophone symbols and so an ensign with the SL arms was rejected.
Variants based on the arms themselves were debated and with both French fleurdelys and English leopards rejected the most acceptable flag involved the maple leaf emblems.
Eventually a flag with 3 joined maple leaves in green on gold was agreed upon, symbolically reflecting the Francophone, Anglophone, and Native peoples working together
Entry 3 said:My entry. Inspired pretty heavily by the coat of arms (though I think so far everyone's taken a look at that) The top blue is for the area's French heritage, the distant past, the middle white and red England, the closer past, and the bottom gold for Canada, the future. The two stars are for Montreal and Quebec City, the largest and most important cities in the province.
