I answered a similar question here about the English presence in the Maritimes. u/enygma9753

Nova Scotia was originally a part of Acadia -- the Maritime region of New France. Britain captured peninsular NS in the aftermath of Queen Anne's War and claimed the region, encouraging Protestant settlement from New England. It established Halifax as a garrison town and naval port in 1749 to serve as its capital. The region was still in dispute with France at the outbreak of the Seven Years War. It was also overwhelmimgly French and Catholic at the time.

Both the Acadians and their native allies launched a series of violent insurrections, which continued intermittently until the Seven Years War when Britain deported the entire French Catholic Acadian population and vacated the land. Settlers from New England arrived in increasing numbers after the fall of New France in 1763. By the time of the 1774 Quebec Act, Nova Scotia was a British colony that was similar to New England in many ways, with its own governor, assembly and the dominance of Protestantism.

In contrast, Quebec remained majority French and Catholic in 1774 and outnumbered English Protestants by 25 to 1. It was still ruled by an appointed governor and executive council, with no elected assembly (until 1791). This, and the Quebec Act -- one of the Intolerable Acts -- incensed both the New England merchant class in Quebec and the Thirteen Colonies.

Nova Scotia's British colonial identity began in the early 1700's and was secured with the capture of the fortress of Louisbourg in the Seven Years War, the forced exodus of Acadian settlers and their replacement by English Protestant settlers.