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TheFrench termpure laine (lit. 'pure wool' or'genuine', often translated as 'old stock' or 'dyed-in-the-wool'), refers toQuébécois people of fullFrench Canadian ancestry, meaning those descended from the original settlers ofNew France who arrived during the 17th and 18th centuries.[1][2] Terms with a similar meaning includede souche (of the base of the tree, or root)[3] andold stock as in "Old Stock Canadians".[4]
Many French-Canadians are able to trace their ancestry back to the original settlers from France—a number are descended from mixed marriages between theFrench,Scottish andIrish settlers.[5] Unions sharing Roman Catholic faith were approved by theRoman Catholic Church inQuebec. ManyEnglish emigrants in the region, especially after 1763 when Quebec was ceded to Britain, were ultimately assimilated into Francophone culture.
The term is associated withnativism andethnic nationalism in Quebec, and its usage has been criticized for excluding immigrants from Québécois identity and culture.[6][7]
The genealogy of thepure laine – dating back to original settlers ofNew France in the seventeenth century – has been the subject of detailed research.[8][9] Prior to 1663 theSociété Notre-Dame de Montréal recruited women to come toMontreal, then known asVille-Marie.[10]: 8 King Louis XIV – following the advice ofJean Talon,Intendant of New France – sponsored about 800 female immigrants theKing's Daughters orles filles du Roi to increase the number of marriages and therefore the population of New France.[11][12] 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.[8]
From the seventeenth century into the twentieth century, French Canadians lived in relative geographic and linguistic isolation.[13] Their "settlements, internal migrations, and natural population increase" were well-documented[13] with "3 million records covering the whole province of Quebec over four centuries."[14] By 2015 "extended pedigrees of up to 17 generations" were constructed from "a sample of present-day individuals."[14] In an article published in 2001 in theAnnual 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."[13] Founder populations, like the descendants of the early French immigrants, have an important role in the study of genetic diseases.[14][15] With an unusually high prevalence ofgenetic disorders in the subpopulations of Quebec, they became the subject of human genetics research.[13] Clusters of hereditary disorders in eastern Quebec in the twentieth century were traced to immigrants fromPerche, France who arrived in the seventeenth century.
Catholic priest and historianLionel 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."[16] Groulx's best-known novelL'Appel de la race, challenged the narrative surrounding French-English relationships in Quebec and revisited the history of Canada from a French Canadian perspective.[17] In the 1920s following the publication of this novel, French Canadian nationalism "espoused the thought of Lionel Groulx", retained Catholicism and abandonedHenri Bourassa's pan-Canadian perspective.[16] In 1998, Xavier Gélinas, then-Curator at theCanadian Museum of History (French:Musée canadien de l’histoire), then known as the Canadian Museum of Civilization, 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.[16] Groulx's work is considered to be a contributing factor to theQuiet Revolution in 1960 even though the Quebec nationalism of therévolution tranquille was "a-religious and ethnically pluralistic."[16] Expressions such asCanadiens français pure laine,Québécois pure laine orrévolution tranquille became powerful evocative symbols charged with ideology and identity.[18]: 18 Gélinas challenged the thesis of French Canadian historianEsther Delisle whom he described aspure laine. Delisle's controversial PhD political science dissertation and the book entitledThe Traitor and the Jew based on her thesis,[19][20] argued that Groulx and the newspaperLe Devoir wereantisemitic and supportedfascism.[16]
The use ofpure laine was brought to the forefront following itscontroversial usage in the front-page article byJan Wong in Canada's nationally distributed newspaper,The Globe and Mail on September 16, 2006, three days after theshooting at Dawson College in Montreal.[21] In her article entitled "Get under the desk," Wong argued that the frequent and historic use of the termpure 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."[22][23][24][25]
Wong's accusations were denounced byNational Post journalist, Barbara Kay, then-PremierJean Charest and theSociété Saint-Jean-Baptiste (SSJB). SSJB PresidentJean Dorion declared "There is no obsession for racial purity in Quebec, definitely not. The expression 'pure laine' is absolutely obsolete."[25]
However the term was still frequently used in both English and French media.[26][27][28] And in 2007, theTaylor-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."[29] The Commission investigatedreasonable accommodation of immigrants into Quebec society.
According to David Austin, author ofFear of a Black Nation (2013), which was based on Austin's two decades of inquiry including interviews and international archival research,[3]
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 aspure laine (pure wool) or Québécoisde 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 Québécois or a Quebecer.
TheEnglish-Canadian equivalent topure laine is "old stock", referring to the descendants of those original settlers ofBritish Canada andFrench Canada who immigrated in the 17th and 18th centuries. Liberal MPStéphane Dion used the term in 2014: "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."[30]
"pure laine" (pure wool), a term to describe someone whose lineage is 100 per cent derived from New France settlers.
The term pure laine ('old stock', literally 'pure wool') is sometimes taken to be synonymous with Québécois, a term ... and belonging in recent years in Quebec; many find the idea and its linking with Québécois identity and culture to be racist
So we find that this new racism is produced as part of a general political move that aligns "race" with national and cultural ... a challenge that posits "ethnic groups" as interlopers—not the "pure laine"—who have no right to participate.
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