Introduction

It is emergent knowledge—especially among Fortissax is Typing subscribers—that Canadians underwent an ethnogenesis long before the Canadian stage was officially constructed. French Canadians were the first: hand-picked settlers from the far northwest of France, with prominent Norman and Breton ancestry, making them ethnically distinct from continental French populations. With the arrival of the Loyalists—and later, the influx of British settlers—came the formation of the Anglo-Canadians of Ontario and the Maritimes, who would eventually spread westward.

But there is a third group—unintentionally forgotten or, when acknowledged, denied the right to exist as a distinct people—who played a pivotal role in Canadian history. Though small in number, they wielded immense influence in the shaping of the nation, and the great imperial city, La Métropole—Montreal—was their bastion. A not-insignificant amount of attention has been given to “English-speaking Quebecers” throughout Canadian history, yet today this label lumps together a linguistically unified but culturally and ethnically fragmented population—many of whom share no meaningful historical or ethnic continuity. It includes people of British, Irish, French, Jewish, Italian, Caribbean, Indian, and even indigenous background. It is a linguistic category, not an ethnocultural one—and therefore not analytically useful.

Far less has been said about the Anglo-Québécois—as a distinct ethnocultural population, born of the New World, like their Anglo and French Canadian kinsmen. The Anglo-Québécois represent another moment of ethnogenesis: the formation of a new people through intermarriage, adaptation, and rooted life in Quebec. They are not simply English speakers who stayed behind in Quebec, nor are they singular individuals of dual heritage. They are larger in number than commonly assumed, and represent the full expression of the Two Solitudes made flesh—a revolutionary Canadian phenotype, forged by Empire, shared experience, familial fusion, and the long negotiation between identities.

As one of these people myself, I’ve never seen our origins chronicled in a way that explores our ethnographic foundations or the cultural characteristics that make us distinct. The Anglo-Québécois are frequently mistaken for one Canadian or the other—and I’ve experienced this firsthand while travelling across Canada. In Quebec, I’m a Britannique, a tête carrée, a maudit Anglais. In Western Canada, and sometimes Ontario, I’m a Queerbecer, a frog, a bastard who should be frozen in the dark. And I’m not the only one.