This research was supported by SSHRC research grants #435-2019-0640 40 ans de changement linguistique à Montréal et à Welland: le rôle de l'individu et de la communauté (M. Tremblay) and #412-2011-1005 Le français à la mesure d'un continent (F. Martineau). We would like to thank our colleagues, France Martineau, Yves Frenette, and Paul-André Linteau, as well as Raymond Mougeon for their contribution to this research endeavor, our research assistants (Guillaume Beauchamp, Geneviève Gauthier, Philippe Morneau), the participants at the conference 50 ans de linguistique sur corpus oraux (U. of Orléans), NWAV48 2019 (U. Oregon) for their feedback, two anonymous reviewers and the editors of the volume for their useful comments. Any remaining errors are entirely our own.