What is the Anglophone community in Quebec?

The Anglophone community in Quebec (Anglo-Quebecers, Quebec Anglophones) is the English-speaking minority of about 1.1 million people in Quebec, representing about 13 per cent of the provincial population. The community uses English as its first official language spoken (per Statistics Canada census categorisation) and is concentrated in specific geographic regions of the province, particularly Greater Montreal.

About 80 per cent of Anglo-Quebecers live in the Greater Montreal area, with major concentrations on Montreal's West Island (the western part of the Island of Montreal from Lachine to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue), in the central downtown around McGill and Concordia universities, and in the West Island's adjacent off-island suburbs. Other regional concentrations include the Outaouais (Pontiac County and the Aylmer area of Gatineau, near the Ontario border), the Eastern Townships (around Lennoxville, Sherbrooke, and Knowlton), the Magdalen Islands, the Lower North Shore (Cote-Nord) on the Gulf of St. Lawrence between Kegaska and Blanc-Sablon, and the Gaspe coast.

Anglophone Quebec has constitutional protections under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects the right to minority-language education for Canadian citizens whose first language is the minority official language of the province. The Quebec English-language school boards (the English Montreal School Board, the Lester B. Pearson School Board, and seven smaller boards) educate about 90,000 students under section 23. McGill University (founded 1821), Concordia University, and Bishop's University are the three English-language universities in Quebec. Several English-language CEGEPs (junior colleges) include Dawson, Vanier, Marianopolis, John Abbott, Champlain, and Heritage.

Quebec's language laws have been a continuing tension. The Charter of the French Language (Bill 101, 1977) made French the only official language of the province, restricted commercial signage to French only (later modified after Ford v. Quebec, 1988, to require French predominance), and limited eligibility for English-language schooling primarily to children of parents who themselves received English-language schooling in Canada. Bill 96 of 2022 (An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Quebec) further tightened French-language requirements and was shielded from most Charter challenge by the section 33 notwithstanding clause. The Quebec Community Groups Network represents about 60 community organisations serving the English-speaking minority. Federal Bill C-13 of 2023 (the modernised Official Languages Act) explicitly recognised the rights and protection of the English-speaking minority in Quebec for the first time.