What you are calling the provinces of Canada began as a French colony. Britain gained ownership of them after defeating the French in the Seven Years War in 1763 - French and Indian War if you are American. After the war American opportunists moved North. With hopes of controlling the lucrative fur trade they demanded a system whereby rule over the new possession was to be made by an assembly of His Majesty's Loyal Subjects. If it had been allowed, some 500 American immigrants would have been allowed to rule over the 90,000 French speaking inhabitants.

The British realized that it would be hard to maintain peace and control over their new foreign speaking colony so enacted the Quebec Act, a number of laws designed to allow the French to maintain their status quo. Laws pertaining to religion, land ownership and legal systems basically remained unchanged. Even today Quebec's laws are different than the rest of Canada's. Having no reasons to complain the French were content and stayed loyal to their British rulers. The American immigrants, unable to control or rule over this newly acquired region considered this to be one of their Intolerable Acts.

Canada's new possessions included Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and parts of Pennsylvania and New York. King George's Royal Proclamation recognized aboriginal ownership and title. This act gave the Indians security and trust in their British rulers and in general the whole of Canada was at peace.

The British government had depleted it's coffers after defending it's North American possessions from the French and was now broke. To rebuild it's treasury it levied taxes against those people it recently defended. These taxes were vastly despised by those who benefited from Britain's expenditures some 10 years earlier. At great cost, peace had finally been established on the continent after well over 100 years of fighting among the two powers. The British government was offended by the unwillingness of its ungrateful colonists to pay their share of defense now that peace had been established so began using it's soldiers as tax collectors and authorized the use of force to collect the taxes.

While the Royal Proclamation created peace and security in the Canadas it boxed the 13 colonies in. With a population of just 90,000 inhabitants, the Canadians had lots of room to grow and we're content. The 3,000,000 people in the American colonies were boxed in and unable to expand. With the threat of French invasion removed from the continent the Americans were no longer dependent on the British for protection. With no need for British protection the American colonists were free to revolt.

When the revolution did finally begin the French Canadians saw no reasons to participate as they had no cause to complain.