DCHP-3

vendu

< Canadian French vendu 'sold'
DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)

Spelling variants:
vendue

n. — usually derogatory, French relations

a Québécois person who is perceived as sympathizing with English Canada; a sellout.

Type: 1. Origin — Vendu is the past tense of "to sell" in French, which is used as a noun to denote "sellout", a betrayer of a political cause. In Canadian English, the term is a lexical transfer from Quebec French in the specific sense of a francophone Quebecker who has assimilated to English Canada. Boberg (2012: 496) notes that French lexical items often transfer to Quebec English in that province (see, e.g. dep or metro). English speakers have used the untranslated term in certain instances when referring to Quebec-born officials (see, e.g. the 2006 quotation). Note that in the 1988 quotation from the Financial Post, published in Toronto, an English definition is provided, but in the 1997 quotation from the Montreal Gazette, there is no need to translate a term Quebec English speakers are familiar with.
See also COD-2, s.v. "vendu", which is marked "Cdn derogatory".
See: dep,metro

Quotations

1967
You are right when you say that UGEQ would not have sent an observer if it had not been for the SISA conference in Winnipeg. In fact, I had to pay for my trip from Winnipeg to Saskatoon, since the UGEQ executive was so displeased with both the project and the Albertan diplomacy that they did not want to have any - thing to do with it. It is only because I thought the project could be saved that I went to Saskatoon. This gave me the privilege of being labelled 'traitor', and 'vendu' when I came back. If I had just known. But now I have learned my lesson.
1978
English Canadians have been frustrated by Quebec and the national unity crisis for some time but there is increasing evidence that Anglos are becoming bored with the whole thing. This turning of a wintry shoulder has been noticed in francophone Quebec, and with some alarm. On a recent visit to Quebec City, I was implored by no fewer than half-a-dozen francophones to remember that 6 million Quebeckers don't speak with one PQ accent, and that English Canada has to show an unofficial interest in Quebec as well as an official one (like the great Pepin-Robarts road show.) I scarcely knew these people and was astonished at their boldness - besides they were not vendus, all had supported the PQ, and most draw their livings in one way or another from the public teat.
1988
[Robert Bourassa] was also overtaken by events. His window of opportunity for molding an "English-allowed, French-predominant" consensus, which, had it succeeded, would have consigned a demoralized and disorganized Parti Quebecois to permanent political irrelevance, closed very quickly. Once it did, the old imperatives of Quebec politics reasserted themselves: losing English support hurts, but being seen in the French community as a vendu to the English, a sell-out, is fatal.
1997
Lysiane Gagnon was brave to set the record straight on the basis of her personal memories. The myth of victimization at the cruel hands of the contemptuous anglos is so entrenched in literature and historiography that comments confirming the myth are accepted and rewarded, comments questioning or repudiating the myth are likely to be perceived as the work of a vendue.
2006
The incident reminded some Grits of Martin supporters chanting "vendue, vendue" at the Calgary convention in 1990 in an attempt to portray Chretien, a Quebec politician, as a sellout to his own province in the Meech Lake Accord debacle. It's an incident Chretien has never forgotten and which he stills brings up from time to time, commenting on how the anglophone hecklers didn't even know how to pronounce "vendue" correctly during the chant.
2013
Henri Bourassa, the French-Canadian nationalist, who fought Laurier's embrace of British imperialism, founded the Quebec newspaper Le Devoir, and portrayed Laurier as a vendu -- a French Quebecer who had sold out his own people.

References

  • Boberg (2012)
  • COD-2