1 INTRODUCTION

According to the Wiley‐Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization, mass migration “differs from individual migration in the sheer numbers of people involved.” Three major periods of mass migration can be identified; the first period where European migration to the new world followed Christopher Columbus discovery of the Americas; the second linked to the Industrial Revolution where a new wave of European migration to the Americas occurred; and the last period of migration in the post 1965 era, characterized by immigration from less industrialized countries to more industrialized countries (Pok, 2012).

The current era of mass migration from third world countries to developed nations is an interesting subject for demographers; it is a politically hot topic. Few demographers have asked what the long‐term impact of the current period of mass migration will be on host countries' ethnic composition. One of them, Professor David Coleman of Oxford University, had published extensively on the subject (Coleman, 2002; Coleman, 2003; Coleman, 2006a; Coleman, 2006b; Coleman, 2007; Coleman, 2008; Coleman, 2009; Coleman, 2010; Coleman, Compton, & John, 2002); his research focuses on western European countries and puts a particular emphasis on the United Kingdom. Coleman stated that “most academic discussion of migration concentrates upon its effects on the economy, labour force and ‘race relations’. Less attention is paid to the effects on total population: its size, structure and its ethnic or national composition” (Coleman, 2003). In his literature review, he highlighted the fact that 15% to 30% of the population of western European countries will be represented by first‐ and second‐generation immigrants (Coleman, 2008) by the mid‐21st century; his projection predicted that the White British population would fall to below 56% of the United Kingdom's population in 2056 (Coleman, 2010). In France, the demographer Michèle Tribalat estimated, for the year 1999, that 24% of France population aged between 1 and 60 years old were first‐, second‐, or third‐generation immigrants (Tribalat, 2004); according to the author, this would be the highest rate in Europe.

In 2015, Tribalat updated her analysis with the 2011 French census where the French definition of the term “foreign origin” changed which yielded results easier to compare with other European countries; she estimated for the year 2011 that first‐ and second‐generation immigrants comprised 19.2% of France's total population while the first, second, and third generation made up 30% of the total. The author also highlighted that the definition of “foreign origin” has an important impact on the results; for example, Norway's foreign origin population of 2011 would be 12.2% according to Denmark's definition while it would be 17.2% according to the Netherlands' definition. Using national statistics institutes, Tribalat calculated for the first‐ and second‐generation immigrants' share of the population of Sweden, France, Austria, Netherland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, England, and Belgium in 2011 and obtained, respectively, 26.0%, 19.2%, 18.7%, 21.1%, 17.2%, 10.1%, 18.5, 19.5%, 20.2%, and 24.2% for these countries (Tribalat, 2015). Another study concluded that people who migrated to Europe after 2004 and their descendants will represent more than half of the population at childbearing age by 2054 in some European countries (Ediev, Coleman, & Scherbov, 2014). In the United States, the Pew Research Center tabulated data from the American decennial census of 1960, 1985, 2001, and 2017 and concluded that the boomer generation, when they were aged 21 to 36 years old, were 75% white, while the millennium generation, when compared at the same age, were 56% white, which highlights the fact that mass migration, mainly from Mexico, is changing the ethnic composition of the American population (Pew Research Center, 2018). Smith and Edmontson showed that non‐Hispanic whites made up 83% of the U.S. population in 1970; their projections predicted that this group would fall to 51% in 2050 (Smith & Edmonston, 1997).

Canada, a confederation of provinces created in 1867, traces its origins to the colonization of the shores of the St‐Lawrence River by French settlers between 1608 and 1760. Then, after the British conquest, immigrants from the British Isles settled in the colony. Immigration to Canada originated almost exclusively from Europe until the 1960's when immigration restrictions based on country of origin were lifted. By 1970, most recent immigrants were non‐European; in 1971, Canada proclaimed multiculturalism to be its integration policy (Reitz, 2012; Statistics Canada, 2016). Canada being amongst the countries receiving the most immigrants per capita (Chagnon 2013), it is expected to experience a marked shift in its ethnic background during the 21th century. According to an official projection, by 2036, between 44.2% and 49.7% of Canadians will be first‐generation and second‐generation immigrants, and between 82.2% and 84.6% of these first‐ or second‐generation immigrants will be of non‐European origin (Morency, Malenfant, & MacIsaac, 2017). If the developed world's ethnic background is going to change significantly during the current century, then, thanks to its high migration level, Canada will be the amongst the first in which this will occur. Thus, Canada can be considered a live laboratory to study the impact of mass migration on a country's ethnic background.

Within Canada, the French Canadians, an ethnic minority in Canada, have had a long history of struggling to preserve their cultural identity and language. For example, after the Rebellion of 1837–1838, the British Crown had sent Lord Durham to investigate the causes of the rebellion; one of Durham's recommendation in his report, “Report on the Affairs of British North America” (Lambton, 1839), was to assimilate the French Canadians to the British culture by increasing immigration from Great Britain to Canada; although British immigration to Canada was high, French Canadians' elevated total fertility rate (TFR) prevented their demographic marginalization and subsequent assimilation. The French Canadians, whose origins lie in the colonization of New France (Vézina, Tremblay, Desjardins, & Houde, 2005), had maintained a status of ethnic majority in the Province of Quebec since the British's conquest. The study of the evolution of the ethnic French Canadian (EFC) population, which is facing low fertility at the same time as its Quebec base has a high immigration rate, makes an interesting case study for the observation of the impact of mass migration on local ethnic groups' demographic weight (DW). As a matter of perspective, in 2016, there were 84,642 births in Quebec compared to 52,205 newly arrived immigrants (Statistics Canada, 2019); these two figures alone should give an insight into a predictable future. Note that the term demographic weight (DW) as used here describes an ethnic group's share of a territory (in this case, Quebec's) total population.

This could have multiple social implications in the province of Quebec, one of them being the hot topic of language policy. As the DW of immigrants increases in the province, one may wonder, what will happen to the French language in Quebec? The fact that Quebec's population of about 8 million is approximately 80% francophone (French mother tongue) and surrounded by about 350 million anglophones located in other Canadian provinces and the United States is important. Thus, immigrants entering Quebec may well assimilate to the English language, particularly in Montreal, the provincial metropole. The linguistic question is a central theme in Quebec politics since the province's parliament passed laws concerning the use of the French language in the workplace, in education, and in public spaces (Woolfson, 1983; Hamers & Hummel, 1994; Termote, 2015; Bilodeau, 2016; Kircher 2016; Bourhis & Sioufi, 2017). The use of French is strongly influenced by the DW of the EFC (Maheu, 1973) as well as the assimilation of immigrants to the French language (Ouellette, 2011).

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of immigration on the EFC DW. This main objective obviously includes the following questions. Are the EFC converging toward a minority status? If yes, when and at what rate? As of today, what portion of the Quebec population is represented by EFC? What was the past impact of immigration on EFC representativeness? On the quantitative level, how do we define mass immigration? Answers to these questions will have multiple social implications, including the preservation of the French language in Quebec.

Regarding the EFC share in the province, as absurd as it may seem, this has not been enumerated for the past 50 years. Recent census data cannot be used to determine the EFC DW since French Canadians can identify themselves as Quebecers, French, Canadians, or French Canadians; other ethnic groups would also identify as Quebecers, French, or Canadian; moreover, individuals can identify with more than one ethnic category (Statistics Canada, 2006). And the linguistic approach cannot be used to indirectly determine EFC DW either since 48% of all immigrants have adopted French (Castonguay, 1997) including 40% for first‐generation allophone (non‐English, non‐French) immigrants (Castonguay, 2002) and 61% for second‐generation allophone immigrants (Bélanger, Sabourin, & Lachapelle, 2011). The most reliable data dates from the 1971 census where the ethnic origin question was answered based on firm choices rather than from self‐identification as found in later censuses. In parallel, ethnic‐based demography was still common in the 1970s. The demographer Robert Maheu discussed the future of linguistic groups in Quebec, underlining the fact that the French language legacy was closely link to the proportion of EFC. Maheu showed that, in 1971, the EFC made up 79.0% of Quebec's population while 80.7% of Quebecers spoke French (Maheu, 1973). However, not long after, demographers shifted their attention to linguistic demography (Duchesne, 1980; Lachapelle & Henripin, 1980; Paillé, 2011; Robitaille, Bourbeau, Girard, & Tremblay, 1992; Termote, 2001).

Regarding the fate of the EFC majority in the province, the closest answer to this question was obtained in 1987 when the demographer Jacques Henripin projected the DW of the descendants of Quebecers of 1981 for the year 2081 (Henripin & Pelletier, 1986; Henripin & Pelletier, 1987). Henripin concluded that if the TFR of Quebecers was maintained at 1.6 and if immigration was used to prevent Quebec's population decline, 24% of Quebecers of 2081 would descend from Quebecers of 1981 while the balance, 76%, would be from immigrant sources. Henripin did not focus on the EFC as he took the entire population of Quebec of 1981 (EFC and non‐EFC), which he compared with the post‐1981 immigrants to examine the relative weight of each in the 2081 population. The current study goes beyond Henripin's by investigating the past impact of immigration on the EFC DW, from 1971 to 2014, which was impossible at the time of Henripin; then, it focuses strictly on the demographic evolution of the French Canadian ethnic group, a subject which has not been studied for the last 50 years.