This is Québec only. Other provinces that have more water and hills still have less hydro.

I don’t think the fact that Finland is north and cold and icy is a factor either. A lot of Québec’s power generating stations are in the desolate north, with some of the biggest ones on rivers flowing into the Hudson’s Bay, and they were built in the 70s.

However looking at the relief and hydro and topo maps of Finland, while there’s plenty of lakes, there’s no strong rivers. Couple this with an apparent ban on new hydro, and we got the answer.

I wonder how they’d fare with geothermal.