the Quebec Act, restoring French civil laws and abrogating the Test Act, which had been used to suppress Catholicism. Canada as a federal state In 1791, Parliament repealed the Quebec Act and gave the king authority to divide the Canadian colony into two new provinces: Upper Canada, which later became Ontario, and Lower Canada, which became Quebec. In 1867, three colonies of British North America agreed to form a federal state, which was named Canada. It was composed of four provinces: Ontario, formerly Upper Canada Quebec, formerly Lower Canada Nova Scotia New Brunswick, former Acadian territory In Quebec, French became again the official language; until then it was the vernacular language but with no legal status. Dialects and varieties As a consequence of geographical seclusion and as a result of British conquest, the French language in Canada presents three different but related main dialects. They share certain features that distinguish them from European French. All of these dialects mix, to varying degrees, elements from regional languages and folk dialects spoken in France at the time of colonization. For instance, the origins of Quebec French lie in 17th- and 18th-century Parisian French, influenced by folk dialects of the early modern period and other regional languages (such as Norman, Picard and Poitevin-Saintongeais) that French colonists had brought to New France. It has been asserted that the influence of these dialects has been stronger on Acadian French than on French spoken in Quebec. The three dialects can also be historically and geographically associated with three of the five former colonies of New France: Canada, Acadia and Terre-Neuve (Newfoundland). In addition, there is a mixed language known as Michif, which is based on Cree and French. It is spoken by Métis communities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan as well as within adjacent areas of the United States. Immigration after World War II has brought francophone immigrants from around the world, and with them other French dialects. Francophones across Canada Quebec Quebec is the only province whose sole official language is French. Today, 71.2 percent of Quebecers are first language francophones. About 95 percent of Quebecers speak French. However, many of the services the provincial government provides are available in English for the sizeable anglophone population of the province (notably in Montreal). For native French speakers, Quebec French is noticeably different in pronunciation and vocabulary from the French of France, sometimes called Metropolitan French, but they