On 11/10/05, P. J. Alling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Most places that use either French Civil Law or the Napoleonic Code once > were governed under one or the other. Quebec became a British > possession before either was instituted. This must make Quebec unique... >
It was part of the deal with Quebec joining confederation back in 1867 (along with Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario, they were one of the four founding provinces) that they could keep their Civil Code, which was already in force (instituted in 1866). Although Lower Canada (now Quebec) had been a British colony since 1759, the Brits found that the francophones were rather hard to govern. It was eventually decided that they might be more compliant if they were allowed to keep their religion and civil laws (inherited from France, as you rightly point out). When Lower Canada became a Canadian province, those rights were enshrined in our constitution, the British North America Act. Enough Canadian history for today... <g> -frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
