Old Stock Canadians is a term referring to Western European Canadians whose families have lived in Canada for many generations (prior to Confederation). It is used by some to refer exclusively to English-speaking Canadians with British Isles settler ancestors, but it usually refers to British/Irish Canadians and French Canadians as parallel old stock groups. Ethnic French Canadians, who descend from French settlers in New France (prior to the Conquest of New France in 1760), are sometimes referred to as pure laine, often translated as "dyed in the wool", but with the same connotation as old stock.

Old stock Canadians arrived as the original settlers of French Canada and British Canada. In 1871 (right after Confederation), approximately 3.4 million Canadians were of Western European descent (98.4% of the total population) of which roughly 83.9% were Canadian-born.

Elaine Elke defines old stock Canadians as, "white, Christian and English speaking."

Richard Bourhis, however, regards both Anglophone and Francophone Canadians as old stock, reporting that large number of both groups self-describe their ethnicity as "Canadian," although he states that many Canadians associate the term with Anglophone identity. Boyd and Norris concur in finding that Canadians primarily associate the term with Anglophone identity.

While the term can refer to Canadians who are descendants of settlers or immigrants who have lived in the country for one or more generations as then PM Stephen Harper said in 2015, it is most typically applied to those whose families were originally from France or Britain. 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."

Some would also refer to this term as those whose families arrived in Canada prior to post-WWII waves of immigration.

Individuals of Francophone descent who self-describe as "old stock" include journalist Lysiane Gagnon, "I am an old-stock Canadian whose ancestor, Mathurin Gagnon, came to Canada in 1640 from a small farming community in the western part of Normandy." She describes "old stock" as "those who came from France in the early 17th century and a much smaller group who came from Great Britain in the wake of the 1759 British Conquest." She explains that, "There's never been, in my family, stories or recollections of another kind of life on another continent or memories of an exodus. My forebears never knew another country than Canada. They never had another native language than French. They never cooked meals that were different from their neighbour's. They never had a wide network of cousins in faraway places. As a child, the most 'different' persons I had in my family circle were a Scottish aunt and a few Irish cousins. Coming from an old-stock background (which is the case of 80 per cent of Quebeckers) shapes your personality and influences your views – not always for the best..."