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The French term pure laine, literally meaning pure wool (and often translated as dyed-in-the-wool), refers to those whose ancestry is exclusively French-Canadian. The term probably relates to the raising of sheep for wool, which was common in rural Quebec of the 1700s.) Some definitions are more specific, indicating those whose families arrived in Canada during a specific period, with a lineage that is 100 per cent derived from New France (1534 to 1763) settlers.Terms with a similar meaning include de souche (of the base of the tree, or root) and old stock as in "Old Stock Canadians".

Many French-Canadians are able to trace their ancestry back to the original settlers from France—a number are descended from mixed marriages between the French, Scottish and Irish settlers. Unions sharing Roman Catholic faith were approved by the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec. Many English people in the region, especially after 1763 when Quebec was ceded to Britain, were ultimately assimilated into the francophone culture.

Context

The genealogy of the pure laine – dating back to original settlers of New France in the seventeenth century – has been the subject of detailed research. Prior to 1663 the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal recruited women to come to Montreal, then known as Ville-Marie. King Louis XIV – following the advice of Jean Talon, Intendant of New France – sponsored about 800 female immigrants the King's Daughters or les filles du Roi to increase the number of marriages and therefore the population of New France. The Sisters of Notre-Dame facilitated their settling in Ville-Marie. In his 1992 PhD dissertation Yves Landry listed 770 of the approximately 800 by name.

From the seventeenth century into the twentieth century, French Canadians lived in relative geographic and linguistic isolation. Their "settlements, internal migrations, and natural population increase" were well-documented with "3 million records covering the whole province of Quebec over four centuries." By 2015 "extended pedigrees of up to 17 generations" were constructed from "a sample of present-day individuals." In an article published in 2001 in the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, McGill University professor Charles R. Scriver, observed there is "important evidence of social transmission of demographic behavior [sic] that contributed to effective family size and population structure." Founder populations, like the descendants of the early French immigrants, have an important role in the study of genetic diseases. With an unusually high prevalence of genetic disorders in the subpopulations of Quebec, they became the subject of human genetics research. Clusters of hereditary disorders in eastern Quebec in the twentieth century were traced to immigrants from Perche, France who arrived in the seventeenth century.

Catholic priest and historian Lionel Groulx (1878–1967) was the key figure behind the rise of Quebec nationalism which stressed "territoriality and the use of the Quebec state" in the first half of the twentieth century. Jean Éthier-Blais claimed that among Quebec nationalist intellectuals the twentieth century was Groulx century — "le siècle de l'abbé Groulx." Groulx's best-known novel L'Appel de la race, challenged the narrative surrounding French-English relationships in Quebec and revisited the history of Canada from a French Canadian perspective. In the 1920s following the publication of this novel, French Canadian nationalism "espoused the thought of Lionel Groulx", retained Catholicism and abandoned Henri Bourassa's pan-Canadian perspective. In 1998 Xavier Gélinas, then-Curator at the Canadian Museum of Civilization CMC), presented a talk at a conference on Quebec history in which he argued that even in the 1980s Groulxism remained as an important ideology among Quebecois. Groulx's work is considered to be a contributing factor to the Quiet Revolution in 1960 even though the Quebec nationalism of the révolution tranquille was "a-religious and ethnically pluralistic." Expressions such as Canadiens français pure laine, Québecois pure laine or révolution tranquille became powerful evocative symbols charged with ideology and identity. Gélinas challenged the thesis of French Canadian historian Esther Delisle whom he described as pure laine. Delisle's controversial PhD political science dissertation and the book entitled The Traitor and the Jew based on her thesis, argued that Groulx and the newspaper Le Devoir were antisemitic and supported fascism.

History

The use of pure laine was brought to the forefront following its controversial usage in the front-page article by Jan Wong in Canada's nationally distributed newspaper, The Globe and Mail, on September 16, 2006, three days after the shooting at Dawson College in Montreal. In her article entitled "Get under the desk," Wong argued that the frequent and historic use of the term pure laine revealed a uniquely Québécois brand of racism. "Elsewhere, to talk of racial 'purity' is repugnant. Not in Quebec." Furthermore, she suggested that the school shootings might have been related to the fact that the perpetrators were not old-stock French Québécois and they had been alienated by a Quebec society concerned with "racial purity."

Wong's accusations were denounced by National Post journalist, Barbara Kay, then-Premier Jean Charest and the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste (SSJB). SSJB President Jean Dorion declared "There is no obsession for racial purity in Quebec, definitely not. ... The expression 'pure laine' is absolutely obsolete."

However the term was still frequently used in both English and French media. And in 2007, the Taylor-Bouchard Commission included the recommendation that the use of the expression "Québécois de souche" be ended and replaced with the term "Quebecers of French-Canadian origin." The Commission investigated reasonable accommodation of immigrants into Quebec society.

According to David Austin, author of Fear of a Black Nation (2013), which was based on Austin's two decades of inquiry including interviews and international archival research,

Québecois has conventionally been used to signify the descendants of Québec settlers from France, the majority habitants of the province, who are otherwise referred to as pure laine (pure wool) or Québecois de souche (of the base of the tree, or root). However, the changing face of Québec's increasingly diverse population challenges the privileged place of those French descendants and calls for a more inclusive notion of what it means to be Québecois or a Quebecer.

Similar terms in English

Old-stock Canadians

The English-Canadian equivalent to "pure laine" is "old stock", referring to the descendants of those original settlers of British Canada and French Canada who immigrated in the 17th and 18th centuries. For example, Liberal MP Stéphane Dion used the term in 2014 in the following manner: "If I'm fishing with a friend on a magnificent lake in the Laurentians ... and I see a small boat in the distance ... usually it's two middle-aged old-stock French-Canadians or English-Canadians."

Unamerican

According to Gilman and Milton, the appellation "Unamerican" favoured by US Senator Joseph McCarthy is a version of the terms pure wool, true blue, dyed-in-the-wool, and old stock.

See also

• Québécois (word)
• Pur et dur
• Français de souche

References

1. "Wool Marketing in Canada". Ag Info. Province of Alberta. 14 November 2007. Retrieved 26 January 2017. The sheep and wool industry in Canada began with the first French settlers in the mid 1600s.
2. Hypatia, Francis (1986). "Twist Collective". Twist Collective. Twist Collective. Retrieved 26 January 2017. Sheep were so common in New France that 18th century . ... every countryman commonly keeps a few sheep which supply him with as much wool as he needs to clothe himself with.
3. Hopper, Tristin (20 September 2015). "Taking stock of 'old stock Canadians': Stephen Harper called a 'racist' after remark during debate". National Post. Toronto. Retrieved 28 January 2017. "pure laine" (pure wool), a term to describe someone whose lineage is 100 per cent derived from New France settlers.
4. ^ Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in Sixties Montreal. Toronto: Between the Lines. 2013. p. 255. ISBN 9781771130103.
5. Tu Thanh Ha (13 March 2015). "Of wool and old stocks: When is a Québécois not a Québécois?". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
6. "Québec History". Québec City Tourism. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
7. ^ Landry, Yves (1992). Orphelines en France, pionnieres au Canada, les filles du Roi au XVIIe siecle (Thesis). Montreal.
8. Haines, Michael R.; Steckel, Richard H. (15 August 2000). A Population History of North America. Cambridge University Press. p. 736. ISBN 0521496667.
9. Beaudoin, Marie-Louise; Sévigny, Jeannine (1996). "Les premières et les filles du roi à Ville-Marie". Montreal: Maison Saint-Gabriel. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
10. Lanctot, Gustave (1952). "Filles de joie ou filles du roi". Montreal: Les Éditions Chantecler Ltée. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
11. Landry, Yves (1992). "Orphelines en France pionnières au Canada: Les filles du roi au XVIIe siècle". Montreal: Leméac Éditeur Inc. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
12. ^ Scriver, Charles R. (September 2001). "Human Genetics: Lessons from Quebec Populations". Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics. 2: 69–101. doi:10.1146/annurev.genom.2.1.69.
13. ^ Gauvin, H.; Lefebvre, J. F.; Moreau, C.; Lavoie, E. M.; Labuda, D.; Vézina, H.; Roy-Gagnon, M. (May 2015). "GENLIB: an R package for the analysis of genealogical data". BMC Bioinformatics. 16 (160). doi:10.1186/s12859-015-0581-5. PMC 4431039. PMID 25971991.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
14. de Braekeleer, Marc; Dao, To-Nga (April 1994). "Hereditary Disorders in the French Canadian Population of Québec. II. Contribution of Perche". Human Biology. 66 (2). Wayne State University Press: 225–249. JSTOR 41464974.
15. ^ Gélinas, Xavier (8 October 1998). Notes on Anti-Semitism Among Quebec Nationalists, 1920-1970: Methodological Failings, Distorted Conclusions. Studies in Quebec History: Seminar Series of the Department of History of Queen's University. Gatineau, Quebec. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
16. Groulx, Lionel (1922). L'Appel de la race. Montréal: L'Action française. p. 278. ISBN 9782762138887.
17. Mathieu, Jacques; Lacoursière, Jacques (1991). Les mémoires québécoises. ISBN 2-7637-7229-3.
18. Delisle, Esther (1993). The Traitor and the Jew: Anti-Semitism and the Delirium of Extremist Right-Wing Nationalism in French Canada from 1929-1939 (Antisémitisme et nationalisme d'extrême-droite dans la province de Québec 1929-1939). ISBN 1-895854-01-6.
19. Delisle, Esther (1998). Myths, Memories & Lies: Quebec's Intelligentsia and the Fascist Temptation, 1939-1960 (Essais sur l'imprégnation fasciste au Québec). ISBN 1-55207-008-5.
20. Wong, Jan (September 16, 2006). "Get under the desk". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved September 20, 2006.
21. "Charest seeks Globe apology over notion culture a factor in school shootings", Canadian Press via The Gazette, September 19, 2006, retrieved September 20, 2006 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
22. ^ Robitaille, Antoine (September 19, 2006), "Les pures laines coupables?", La Presse, retrieved 20 September 2015
23. Vastel, Michel (18 September 2006), "Le racisme sournois du Globe & Mail", L'actualité blog {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
24. ^ "Charest seeks Globe apology over notion culture a factor in school shootings", Canadian Press via The Gazette, September 19, 2006, archived from the original on March 11, 2007, retrieved September 20, 2006 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
25. Ottawa, The (March 20, 2007). "''Don't faint, I'm siding with a separatist''". Canada.com. Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
26. Post, National (September 23, 2006). "''L'affaire Wong' becomes talk of Quebec''". Canada.com. Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
27. Katia Gagnon : La commission Bouchard-Taylor... à l'envers | Actualités | Cyberpresse
28. "Leaked accommodation commission report sparks fury in Quebec". CBC News. Montreal. May 19, 2008. Retrieved 20 September 2015.
29. "Harper's 'old-stock Canadians' line is part deliberate strategy: pollster". CBC News. CBC. 18 September 2015. Retrieved 26 January 2017.
30. Gilman, Sander L; Milton, Shane, eds. (1 September 1999). Jewries at the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252067924. Retrieved 20 September 2015.

Further reading

• Taras Grescoe. Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec. Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 2004. ISBN 1-55199-081-4

• Culture of Quebec
• Quebec political phrases
• French words and phrases
• Racism in Quebec