Quebec is still the stronghold of the French-Canadians, more than half of whom are unable to speak the English language. The French stock still numbers one-fourth of the entire population of the entire Dominion of Canada. On the northern frontier of Quebec there was some mixture with the Indians, but the half-breeds are probably not numerous enough to form a substantial part of the old population. In addition to their great movement to New England the French-Canadians have spread into Ontario, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island to some extent.
The French-Canadian stock is the most highly inbred of any of the large groups of the New World. It is based on original immigrants who numbered a good many less than 10,000. In the course of three centuries this nucleus has multiplied to 3,000,000, with virtually no additions of fresh arrivals from abroad. They have lived a New World life longer than have most of the Whites of the Western Hemisphere, and must be put in a class by themselves. They are not French, in spite of their language—an archaic speech at which the true Frenchman laughs. In every way they differ from the present-day French, more indeed than New Englanders of Colonial descent now differ from the present-day Englishman. From the cradle to the grave they are surrounded by the influence of the Roman Catholic Church to an extent almost as unknown to the present-day French as it is to the present-day Americans. Of late years not only those who have come to New England, but some of those living in Quebec Province have shown a disposition to break away from the church because of its heavy and inexorable taxation.
The French-Canadians, in Quebec and the neighboring provinces, were, to an extent, disloyal to the British Empire in the Great War. Under the influence of their priests they resisted the draft in several instances and there was bloodshed in Quebec on this account. As has been said elsewhere, these Frenchmen would not fight for the British Empire, which had guaranteed them extraordinary privileges as to their language and religion, nor would they fight for France, which they claimed as motherland, but which they now regarded as atheistic. Neither would they fight for Belgium, which is pretty nearly as clerical as they are. In short, their conduct during the World War was contemptible and in sharp contrast to the militant and effective patriotism of the more westerly provinces of Canada.
Ontario, called Upper Canada in distinction to French-speaking Lower Canada, received its first important population from the United States when Loyalist refugees, including many Highland Scots, mainly from northern and western New York, settled there and became known as the United Empire Loyalists. Among these immigrants, were the disbanded frontier regiments which had been organized by Sir John Johnson, including abundant Macdonalds from Glengarry and Inverness, together with Camerons, Chisholms, Fergusons, MacIntyres, Russells, and Hamiltons, who opened up the region constituting the present counties of Glengarry, Stormont, and Dundas.
In 1785, almost the entire parish of Knoydart, Glengarry, emigrated direct from Scotland and settled in a body in Upper Canada. In 1793 a contingent from Glenelg settled at Kirkhill. In 1799 came many Camerons from Lochiel, and in 1803 another delegation of Macdonalds arrived, with more people from Glenelg and Kintail. Thus Ontario, which in 1791 was set off from (French) Lower Canada and given its own government under the name of Upper Canada, became almost as much entitled to consider itself a "Nova Scotia," as did the Maritime Province of that name.
At the end of the American Revolution, Upper Canada was supposed not to contain as many as 10,000 inhabitants. By 1811 it had 83,000 and by 1817 it was estimated to have 134,000. While many Irish came at a somewhat later period, most of these eventually went on to the United States.
The interference with British immigration caused by the Napoleonic wars led to Upper Canada's offering special attraction to settlers from the United States. The lack of sympathy of these with the British Government during the War of 1812 was an embarrassment to Canada, just as the loyalty of the United Empire group, which prevented Canada from being conquered by the United States, was in turn a serious annoyance to the American Government.
The later settlement of Ontario was largely from Scotland and the northern English counties, and was pre-dominantly Presbyterian. There were enough Ulster Scots to make it an active center of the American Protective Association of forty years ago and it is definitely, at the present time, a Nordic territory.
During the present century it has received thousands of Austrians, Poles, and Italians, who introduced racial elements not easily assimilated.