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This entry presents an overview of Quebec cinema, from its beginnings in the silent film era to the burgeoning of a distinctly Quebec cinema in the 1960s. It highlights the most important films, whether in terms of box office success or international acclaim, and covers both narrative features and documentaries. It also draws attention to an aspect of filmmaking that still has difficulty finding its place: women’s cinema.

Media literacy refers to the ability to interpret and understand how various forms of media operate, and the impact those media can have on one’s perspective on people, events or issues. To be media literate is to understand that media are constructions, that audiences negotiate meaning, that all media have commercial, social and political implications, and that the content of media depends in part on the nature of the medium. Media literacy involves thinking critically and actively deconstructing the media one consumes. It also involves understanding one’s role as a consumer and creator of media and understanding the ways in which governments regulate media.

Corner Gas is a CTV sitcom created by comedian Brent Butt that ran for six seasons from 2004 to 2009. It is considered one of Canada’s most popular and influential TV comedies. Focusing on the oddball residents of the fictional town of Dog River, Saskatchewan, Corner Gas was an instant hit when it debuted in early 2004, drawing an average of 1 million viewers per episode. Known for its low-key mix of quirky characters, deadpan wit and folksy rural charm, the show repeatedly broke audience records for a Canadian-made scripted television comedy. It won four Directors Guild of Canada Awards, nine Canadian Comedy Awards, five Writer’s Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards and seven Gemini Awards, including three for Best Comedy Series. It has continued as an animated series, Corner Gas Animated, since 2018.  

Newfoundland is particularly rich in the ancient supernatural ballads that are rare elsewhere in North America.

The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. Founded in 1889 to serve as the examination body of the RAM, the RCM, and, in 1947, the Royal Manchester College of Music and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. In 1984 it was reconstituted as an independent company, linked to the Royal Schools.

The first Finnish immigrants to Canada arrived via the USA and Alaska during the mid-19th century. Many worked in construction, on such projects as the Welland Canal and the CPR.

The golden age of personal literature (littérature intime) in the Western world occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Examples of the genre are not found in Québec before the mid-19th century.

A longhouse was the basic house type of pre-contact northern Iroquoian-speaking peoples, such as the Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, Petun and Neutral. The longhouse sheltered a number of families related through the female line. In the 1700s, European-style single-family houses gradually replaced longhouses as primary residences. However, longhouses still function as important facilities in which some Indigenous peoples conduct ceremonies, political meetings and various community gatherings. (See also Architectural History of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

William Bell’s first novel, Crabbe (1986), tells the story of a disaffected teenager who escapes to the wilderness, only to learn that running away will not solve his problems. Crabbe has become a popular choice for school curricula across North America. A 2017 study found that it was among the 20 most-cited books in Ontario classrooms. It was one of only three Canadian books on the list, along with Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. The literary quarterly Canadian Literature attributed the book’s longevity to its “convincing narrative voice” and “precisely observed sense of detail.”

Award-wining writer Don Aker’s The First Stone tells the story of Reef, an embittered and troubled young man who, in a mindless rage, hurls a rock from an overpass and injures Leeza, who is in mourning for an older sister. The two teenagers unexpectedly come together to begin the slow process of healing. The First Stone was first published in 2003 by HarperTrophy Canada. It won the Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award and Atlantic Canada’s Ann Connor Brimer Award in 2004. It was also one of five young adult novels selected for CBC Radio’s “Young Canada Reads” series in 2006.

Caroline Pignat’s Egghead (2008) is a young adult novel that details the effects of bullying through the eyes of three junior high school students. The novel has been lauded for its sensitive portrayal of multiple perspectives of the causes and effects of bullying. Egghead was shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the Ontario Library Association’s Red Maple award, the Saskatchewan Young Reader’s Association Snow Willow Award and the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult Book of the Year award. 

Margaret Atwood’s ninth novel, Alias Grace (1996), is a work of historical fiction that centres on the mysterious figure of Grace Marks. She was convicted in 1843 at the age of 16 for the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, a wealthy Scottish Canadian, who was killed along with his housekeeper and mistress, Nancy Montgomery. Alias Grace won the Giller Prize for fiction in 1996. It was also shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award and England’s Booker Prize. In 2017, Sarah Polley adapted Atwood’s novel into a six-part CBC/Netflix miniseries, starring Sarah Gadon as Marks.

Robertson Davies’s landmark novel Fifth Business (1970) explores the life and psyche of a seemingly ordinary history teacher, Dunstan Ramsey, who has unwittingly played a key role in some remarkable events. It was the first book of Davies’s Deptford Trilogy, which also includes The Manticore (1972) and World of Wonders (1975). Fifth Business became arguably Davies’s most recognized novel and catapulted him to international recognition.

Originally composed as a theme song for a film, Gilles Vigneault’s “Mon pays” expresses nationalism, solidarity and connection to the northern landscape, and was adopted as a Québécois anthem.

Crow Lake is the debut novel by Mary Lawson, a Canadian-born author who lives in Britain. Set in a fictional community in Northern Ontario, Crow Lake tells the story of four children who are orphaned after their parents are killed in a traffic accident. Published in 2002, the novel was a best-seller in Canada and the United States. It has been published in more than two dozen countries and in several languages. It won the Books in Canada First Novel Award (now the Amazon.com First Novel Award) in 2003, as well as the McKitterick Prize for a first novel published in the United Kingdom by an author older than 40. In 2010, CBC Radio listeners selected Crow Lake as one of the Top 40 essential Canadian novels of the decade. It was also listed as one of 150 books to read for Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations in 2017.