I'd say you need 1 of 3 things to effectively create a barrier for a unique culture to form:

1. Language barrier. You see this is Europe most dramatically - many small countries are effectively separated from each other culturally based on language. Sure, there is bleeding over on border regions, but you don't see Danes being swamped by Germans, despite the latter being an order of magnitude bigger in population.

2. Distance, especially in the pre-internet era. It's why Australia and New Zealand have their own thing going on, despite being newish English speaking Commonwealth countries. Without the means to absorb large amounts of cultural content (no, the printed word doesn't really count), you generally end up doing your own thing. Thus, the Aussies and Kiwis have retained their love of cricket, rugby and Aussie rules football along with their accents.

3. Size. The US dwarfs us - we're next door to a superpower who dominates the media landscape. So, yeah, the cultural exchange that will happen mostly one-way, whereas two more equal countries will tend to share a bit more back and forth.

It is, but 'Mother Country' seems to imply genesis by its very name alone.

'Foster parent' or 'Bigger Brother' are more apt terms.

To keep the family analogy going - one can move out of their parents' home, move far away and live next door to their bigger, more successful brother. Will they retain all the habits with what their parents did, or will the successful brother end up being more an influence in their adult life?

Except that English Canada would be radically different if the American Revolution had never occurred. I suspect a British North America would resemble a much larger version of present day New Zealand, which easily retains the most British character of the former colonies, with substantially less numerous and less diverse demographics than what currently exists.

A bigger question: What would a unified British North America have done to what is now French Canada?

The British influence in Australia is in steep decline, as would be expected in a country with high immigration from places other than the UK and an increasingly Asian focused economy. That being said, it is likely at least 50 years behind Canada in shedding its commonwealth identity. Immigration to Australia was highly weighted towards the British Isles until the 70's. Canadian patterns changed in the early 1900's with the homesteading boom. The Australian economy was also highly internally focused until about the 90's, and international trade leaned towards the UK. Canada's trade patterns started to change after WW2 and accelerated after FTA.

The British designated "Canada" as a francophone Canadien homeland after the conquest with the civil code law and Catholic civil structure. This territory initially included modern day Ontario and the American upper Midwest. This was one of the grievances of the American Revolution; the 13 colonies people wanted this land for settlement.

In an alternate history where the revolution never happened, its probable much of this territory would have been removed from the Canadien homeland as a concession. The Louisiana territory wouldn't have been sold by the French although the British might very well have conquered it anyway in the Napoleonic wars.

If Ontario had remained part of the Canadien homeland its possible it would have gradually developed as a western expansion of "Quebec". What is now the Canadian Prairies would probably have been far less developed.

North America may have eventually become independent peacefully like what happened with Canada. Quebec separatism may very well have emerged in this world too.

...or maybe a Britain that no longer had to fear American military might could have completely conquered North America

I wonder how this scenario would have affected migration patterns from the British Isles to North America. It is true that British people continued to move to the US even after its independence, but in terms of the British authorities' priorities their focus shifted on Canada to a large degree. All of which had a profound effect on the region that is today central Canada.

I see no reason why the British, even if they controlled present-day Quebec and Ontario, would not have focused a large share of their settlement efforts on areas more to the south. At least in the short to medium term, the result of this might have been a much more predominantly francophone St. Lawrence Valley and (northern) Great Lakes region.

I'm not. They're Scots-Irish-French hillbillies.

That's quite probable. This is the territory that the British initially designated as Quebec after the conquest of New France:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...uebec_1774.gif

If the Americans hadn't seceded, the British probably would have at some point let the British colonists take over the part of that territory within what is now the USA, but I do think most of what is now Ontario would have stayed part of Quebec. (Maybe not the southernmost part). Before the invention of the railroads the only way to really get there was down the St. Lawrence River anyway. And you're right in that British migrants would have probably settled in the south, much more hospitable. The only reason why Ontario was built up at all in the early 19th century was because of the Loyalists (who obviously wouldn't exist in this scenario). So I do think it would have remained devoid of British settlers long enough that the Canadiens would have settled it first, and probably beat them to the punch at building it up. Of course, it's quite possible that anglophones would overrun it later.

I suspect that Quebec would of taken on the role of "the land of the free".

In short the eastern Seaboard would represent anglo Canada, and Quebec/Lousiana would represent the Americans.

Mental note.

Quebec only had 70,000 people in 1765; the 13 colonies over 1.5 million. Quebec was a backwater then and remains one in North America, which explains its isolationist policies. If England hadn't conquered Quebec, Quebec probably would've been conquered by America and most people would speak English today.

Mental note 2.0.

I know French Canada had a much higher fertility rate in the past ("revanche du berceau") and even not that many generations back, in the earlier half of the 20th century, Jean Chrétien was the 18th of 19th siblings, ten who did not survive infancy.

But how come the part of the St. Lawrence valley that's now in Quebec was able to maintain such a high population growth rate of French descendants, even more than Acadia, Louisiana, or even the parts of Ontario and the American Midwest formerly part of the "province of Quebec" so that it was the place of critical mass for Francophones not to be assimilated away/diluted? Was the head start that crucial and the difference between the St. Lawrence valley being really Francophone and the Great Lakes/Mississipi being hardly much so at all in settler count?

If most of French North America was thinly settled in the late 1700s, why was it Quebec (the area of the St. Lawrence valley in particular) that was able to grow much more than other parts of French North America? Even though it's much colder and has a shorter season to farm and grow crops to thrive off than places farther south in Ontario, and the US that were once French.

Why no revanche du berceau post-Anglo conquest in Acadia, Louisiana (pre- or post- exile), or the formerly French parts of the Midwest US or Ontario? Was it just that Quebec had a "head start", even back when it's population in the 1700s was only tens of thousands? If French speaking, traditional and working class Catholics really had a high fertility rate, big families and a strong urge to keep their culture, why did this "revanche du berceau" mindset not work elsewhere in French North America? There's not even the "je me souviens!" attitude in Louisiana, the Midwest etc. among French descendants versus say the common attitude (often brought up by US Hispanics) that parts of the US South was once Mexico or "New Spain" and that Hispanic immigration to those areas is a throwback to that area's roots, let alone the feisty Anglo-resisting attitude of the Quebecois when it comes to Francophones reclaiming Anglo-Quebecois places like Anglo-Montreal or Sherbrooke.

A province is normally a political division within a country, especially in Canada, so it is incorrect to call Quebec a province in 1774. In 1774 it would have been a colony.

Wasn't there a history though of using the word "province" to refer to colonial divisions even in far-flung outposts at the time (borrowing off Imperial Roman usage)?

I know the British Empire in particular would use "province" and a colony or parts of a colony interchangeably sometimes, even elsewhere outside North America, like the colony of South Australia, being called say, the Province of South Australia.

Mental note 3.0: If I spoke French fluently, I'd move to Montreal tomorrow. Quebec is better than Ontario precisely because it has strong independent Scots-Irish-French hillbillies ruled by warlords/clan chiefs (the BLOC.) I wish the Scots-Irish-English in Ontario would stand up for themselves.

Controversial idea: Quebec is Anglo Canada's mother country.

It may be a term more common in French, but normally I have never heard, for example, Newfoundland or any other province described as a province before confederation. There may be a little revisionist propaganda here.

edit: However, although it appears foreign today, apparently the term was used at that time, specifically for Quebec; "The Province of Quebec was a colony in North America created by Great Britain" (Wikipedia)

On the latter point, I cannot really disagree.

Parts of Acadia closest to Quebec like northern NB did have a revanche des berceaux. One of my parents is descended from that. You also had this in eastern Ontario to some degree.