Bill 101 (1977)

Proclaimed and put into force on 26 Aug. 1977, the Charter of the French Language, commonly known as Bill 101, declared Quebec a unilingual society. The charter, a reaction to an environment that threatened the survival of a French Quebec, required, among other regulations, the predominance of French in commerce, business, and communications, and it compelled the children of immigrants to Quebec to study in French. This text – which would become the law that would have the greatest effect on the image of Quebec and the mindset of its people – enjoyed solid support among the public, except among anglophones, more than 130,000 of whom would choose to emigrate between 1976 and 1981, most of them to Ontario.