In June 1774, the British Parliament provided Quebec with a first constitution recognizing French civil law and the free exercise of the Catholic religion. This Quebec Act, which has long been portrayed as a gesture of generosity from the conqueror towards French Canadians, modestly celebrates its 250e birthday.
For many, the Bill of Quebec is only a dusty chronological marker memorized in a distant high school history class. The event is not embodied by any significant figure of the caliber of a Louis-Joseph Papineau or a George-Étienne Cartier. The only French Canadian present in the Westminster parliament during the debates leading to the adoption of the law in 1774 was Lord Michel Chartier de Lotbinière, an eccentric character who claimed to speak on behalf of his compatriots.
The scope of the Quebec Act is uneven. On a legal level, the Bill only formalized the use of French civil law in the colony, 15 years after its conquest. Despite their efforts, the British authorities did not succeed in uprooting the “Laws of Canada” developed over more than a century based on the custom of Paris.
“Moving from one system to another posed enormous obstacles,” recalls Michel Morin, of the Faculty of Law of the University of Montreal, as he approaches his participation in a conference on the Quebec Act which will take place will be held at the Musée de la civilization from June 5 to 7. The challenge seemed insurmountable in an isolated and compact colony having retained most of its population of French origin.
The implementation of English criminal law is easier. “French Canadians did not see a dramatic change, other than the jury trial,” observes Professor Morin. “It was not criticized, except by the elite, who found it inconceivable that traders and peasants would speak out about their guilt! »
Religious freedom
The Quebec Act further innovated on a religious level by lifting the test oath, which required officials to abjure the power of the pope and deny the transubstantiation of Christ. Catholic French Canadians will thus be able to enter the Legislative Council which will be set up the following year to assist the governor of Quebec, Guy Carleton.
“The Legislative Council is unlike anything we knew in the other British colonies,” notes François Charbonneau, professor at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. “His decisions were not operational. It was up to the governor to make the decisions. »
The power of the governor is all the greater as he chooses the members of his council, whose meetings will be held out of sight, at the Château Saint-Louis in Quebec. The representativeness of the institution will not be a priority for Governor Carleton: 14 of the 22 advisors of the first cohort being English-speaking in a 95% French-speaking colony!
THE Bill of Quebec does not, however, create an elected legislative assembly. “We have a constitutional system that is being put in place, but without elections and without deputies,” explains Michel Morin, speaking of what specialists call Year 1 of Quebec parliamentarism.
The Quebec “empire”
The territorial extension of Quebec towards the west is undoubtedly the most astonishing aspect of the Act of 1774. With the stroke of a pen, the British parliamentarians pushed the Quebec borders back to the Mississippi in order to include the basin hydrography of the Great Lakes. London thus wants to fill a legal void in a territory populated by a mixture of indigenous nations and a few islands of French-Canadian settlement.
We would not have the Magdalen Islands if it were not for the Quebec Act. London added them to the text and “bang”, we have this!
“In the absence of regulations on these lands, there could be dubious commercial practices consisting, for example, of giving alcohol to Aboriginal people and then buying their fur at ridiculous prices,” explains Michel Morin. “We had a lot of difficulty controlling settlers, traders and squatters [anglo-américains]. »
This continental Quebec will be cut off from the south of the Great Lakes in 1783 following the independence of the United States, then the creation of Upper Canada, the future Ontario, which detached itself from it in 1791. If the borders of 1774 were maintained, Quebec would today have 70 million inhabitants. Its metropolis would not be Montreal, but Chicago.
Quebec nevertheless emerged enlarged from the adventure. “We would not have the Magdalen Islands if it were not for the Quebec Act,” recalls François Charbonneau. “London added them to the text and “bang”, we have this! »
A magnanimous act
Contrary to popular belief, the Quebec Act of 1774 was not specifically intended to cajole French Canadians in the run-up to the American Revolution. “The project had been in the works for a very long time,” explains Professor Charbonneau. “It is no longer possible today to defend the hypothesis according to which we tried to buy off Quebecers… except that that is how the Americans will interpret it. »
The law is criticized on both sides of the Atlantic. In London, the carriage of King George III was covered with rubbish by demonstrators who denounced preferential treatment towards “papists”. “Catholicism was associated with French absolutism and attempts to reduce the powers of Parliament,” explains Professor Morin. “This religion was seen through a political lens, which was entirely founded in the history of Great Britain, but which had no relevance in the Quebec colony. »
Popular fury is fueled by a caricature of London Magazine of July 1774 showing a quartet of Anglican bishops dancing the minuet around the Quebec Bill. To the left of the engraving appears the figure of the devil pointing to the British Prime Minister, Lord Frederick North.
The Quebec Act will add to the grievances of the Americans, who will take up arms in April 1775. The unrest will spread to Montreal, where the bust of George III will be smeared black by English-speaking merchants. They will then attach a potato necklace and a sign on which we can read “Here is the Pope of Canada”. The bust of the monarch ended up in a well, from which it was not extracted until 1834, on the eve of the patriot rebellions.