Canada

5 Pages 1143 Words

Canada has always been a state with two nations. Over the decades the French influence across the country dwindled and there was a rise in English dominance. The core area of French Canada is the Lower St. Lawrence River Valley in the Province of Quebec. This region has long-sought to maintain its language and culture. Life centered highly around the doctrines and holdings of the Roman Catholic Church. The majority of inhabitants earned a living practicing some form of agriculture. As a result the family structure grew to be one of great importance. As with all agrarian societies a premium was placed on children and consequently French-Canada’s birth rate was significantly higher than that of other developed nations. The movement towards an industry-based economy and more progressive regional policies were slow coming, hampered by a dispersed conservative religious base. The World Wars opened the region to a more global outlook and momentum began to build for a reversal of widely held old-world values. This transformation culminated in the June 1960 election of the Liberal Party’s Jean Lesage. Over the next six years under Prime Minister Lesage’s government, French-Canada saw some of the most radical and widespread changes in social and economic policy. This period became known as the Quiet Revolution.
Any comprehensive examination of the Quiet Revolution must include careful study of occurrences prior to the Liberal Party’s 1960 takeover of French-Canadian government. Donald Cuccioletta and Martin Lubin argue that it is a mistake to characterize the changes as rapid revolution, spurred by a select few who permanently changed the course of the region. “To present the Quiet Revolution as the collective aggioramento of the Quebecois is very reductive; doing so emits the development of the Quebec society from the point of view of popular culture. It is as if nothing ever transpired relevant to the advent of mod...