Historic Chapter

The rivalry between the English and French in Canada goes all the way back to the settlement of North America. But the French and English were enemies long before that. Their rivalry has a long history, for instance Henry II’s conquering of parts of France in the 12th century, and his struggles with King of France Louis VII (the x-husband of his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine). Later King Louis VII’s son Phillip II of France reconquered Normandy and became the most powerful ruler in Europe at the time. Soon England lost all its possessions in England except Gascony (Bordeaux). In the years between 1350 and 1450, it was all downhill for England. At the battle of Bosworth in 1485 they regained power. Of course these struggles between the two contries have always been in their minds.
The fur business in Canada was blooming, and here there was a lot of money to earn. Hudson Bay was the place to run the fur buisness and it did not take the English long to take possesion of the Bay. Of course, the French wanted a bite of the cake too, and this became one of the biggest sources to the struggles between the English and the French in Canada.
In 1670 the English founded Hudson Bay Company. In 1968 Pierre Troyes attacked some English fortresses close to the Bay and actually managed to take over a couple of them. In 1702 Queen Anne’s War broke out. It was clear that the two groups were in need of an agreement, and in 1713 The Treaty of Utrecht was made. So the French lost all their possesions around Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and Acadia. They kept their colonies in the inland and Cape Breton Island, where they built the Fortress of Louisbourg, that became the French main base. The next 25 years it was the strongest base in northern America. In 1745 Fortress Louisbourg was conquered by the English, but given back to them in 1748. This was a part of the Treaty of Aix-la Chapelle.
So, the English and French have been fighting like this for a long time. Nowadays the fighting has turned into a civilized conversation. The fight is now political, not physical as it used to be. For instance Quebec (which consists of mainly French-speaking citizens) has tried to get independent. This was tried at the 1980 Quebec Referendum and at the 1995 Quebec Referendum. In both cases there was a tiny more voters who didn’t want Quebec to be independent. These referendums and other political issues are more intensively described in the “Politics Chapter”.

At UBC (the University of British Columbia) we were told that you could still feel the tension between the French and the English, but at a very low level now. In elementary school a lot of kids are taught in French, even though their first language is English, so that they learn the language, and can have a lot of opportunities later on in their. This is called the French Immergence Program. These kinds of programs also prevent the tensions between the new generations of French- and English-speaking people.