The huge country of Canada is home to over 38 million people. Of these, almost 8 million (nearly 23% of the population) speak French. Only 35,000 Canadian French speakers (less than one percent) are Bible-believing Christians which, in missiological terms, classifies them as “unreached.” Around 85% of the province of Québec’s population speaks French. Because of their French ethnicity, history, and culture, Québecers are referred to as “a nation within a nation.”

Following the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Huguenots in 1572, settlers arrived from France in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, creating New France, now Canada, making Québecers the first Canadians. Most of them remained in Québec, mixing their French culture with “First Nations” culture. Others spread throughout North America.

Although many of the first arrivals were Huguenots, the Catholic Church was dominant in Québec for four centuries, controlling not only religion, but health care, education, and politics until 1960 when most of the people left the Catholic Church in what came to be called the Quiet Revolution. They replaced the old order with a new secular society that rapidly became post-modern. Today, organized religion is mistrusted, or even disdained. Catholic church vocabulary is even used for Québec’s choice swear words.

Many people, however, are willing to talk about spirituality. The challenge is to share the Gospel through genuine friendship, collaborative service, and creative “non-religious” approaches such as those adopted by an InterVarsity Christian student group. They invited a Christian philosopher to a secular university campus to speak on the topic “If God is good, why is there suffering?” The down-to-earth, well-reasoned talk drew many questions from the audience. Some students asked for another evening like it. The first evangelical churches were founded by Swiss missionaries Henriette Feller and Louis Roussy in the 19th Century. Church membership that had grown to about 30,000 around 1900, had almost dwindled out by the fifties, but “In the decade of the seventies, evangelical work in French Canada exploded. From about forty evangelical churches, the work grew to just under fi ve hundred churches and preaching points before settling down to just over four hundred.”1 From 1970 to 1986, 32,000 people came to the Lord, multiplying church attendance by 555%. Immigrants from Haiti, Latin America, and French-speaking countries of Africa have swelled the numbers in local congregations. Although the population of Québec remains the least reached people group in the Americas, it is often overlooked outside of Canada (where English-speaking churches are both aware and supportive of ministry in the province) because it is assumed that the American continent is soaked in the Gospel.

Evangelism is strong within the church in Québec, and training for those who want to serve in the church—badly needed back in the sixties and seventies—is now available. Some churches and Christians in Québec, however, are not waiting until Québec is “reached” to play their part in fulfilling the mandate God has given to his people to go to the nations. Québecers are serving French speakers across Canada and around the world. Describing a succulent steak dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy and vegetables, Toe-Blake Roy says that putting all the salt on one part of the dinner would ruin it. It is only as Québec spreads its salt around that the flavor of the whole plate – Québec and the world – will be improved. That is the vision of BLF Canada, a missionary organization that seeks to glorify God by assisting the local church through providing Christian materials to meet the needs of evangelism and discipleship in the French-speaking world.

1 D.A. Carson, in his book My Father Was a Church-Planter in Québec