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June 23, 2026
By Jade Lemieux

If you ever find yourself in Sherbrooke, two hours east of Montreal, you might want to make a short detour through its English-speaking borough, Lennoxville. For nine months out of the year, you will find it buzzing with students from its two higher education institutions, Champlain College and Bishop’s University. Walking down College Street from the university’s campus toward Lennoxville’s main street (Queen’s St.), you will cross The Golden Lion—or just The Lion for locals and students—Québec’s oldest microbrewery. It will most likely be filled with students hanging out after class, exceeding their student budget. Continuing down Queen’s Street, you will find yourself next to Faro, a Sherbrooke-owned coffee shop and roaster where I personally spent countless hours working on final papers while drinking lattes. Entering either of those local shops, you will be welcomed with the “bonjour-hi” language filter greeting, a trademark of bilingual areas that you would not hear in the rest of the city. 

With nearly half of its residents recording English as their mother tongue, Lennoxville is one of the last remaining anglophone strongholds in the Eastern Townships. The Eastern Townships refers to a region on the southernmost part of Québec, adjacent to the United States’ border along both Vermont and Maine. Originally Abenaki territory, the region was mostly left alone during the first wave of French colonization, with only one settlement established: Grande-Fourche (now Sherbrooke). Following the American Revolutionary War, groups of British Loyalists flocked to the area despite the Québec governors’ encouragement for them to move west. Therefore, in 1791, the land was divided among 95 townships. Due to its rapid industrial growth and system of roads and railways, the region attracted a large population, including waves of French settlers in the 1840s. By 1881, those French settlers had become a majority over the Anglophone residents of the Eastern Townships. Today, only 10 percent of the population of the Eastern Townships is anglophone, with Lennoxville remaining one of the last English centers. 

Lennoxville’s ability to maintain its English-speaking culture was most likely helped by the foundation of Bishop’s University in 1843, allowing the borough to attract new influxes of English-speaking students from both the United States and anglophone Canadian provinces every year. That said, remaining a predominantly anglophone community in a francophone city does not come without its challenges. In 2002, municipal reorganization in the province led to Lennoxville being amalgamated with Sherbrooke and its other boroughs, thus losing its municipal independence. Since then, the percentage of English speakers in the region has lowered each year. Therefore, in 2021, when the provincial government introduced Bill 96, stating that boroughs that do not meet a 49% threshold of English-speaking residents would no longer be legally considered bilingual, Lennoxville was at risk of losing its bilingual status, which would hinder English residents’ ability to access services in their first language. 

The decision to remove Lennoxville’s bilingual status was immediately overturned by Sherbrooke’s municipal council, highlighting Sherbrooke’s respect and appreciation of the anglophone community of Lennoxville and the biculturalism it brings to the city. However, the resolution for Lennoxville to maintain its bilingual status will have to be passed again with every new census, which puts English in the region vulnerable in the long run if the city council ever changes its decision. 

References

“Borough of Lennoxville.” Ville de Sherbrooke, 2026, . Accessed 15 Apr. 2026.

CBC News. “Municipal Candidates Vow to Protect English Services in Sherbrooke’s Only Bilingual Borough.” CBC, 2 Nov. 2021, . Accessed 15 Apr. 2026.

Mailhot, Pierre, and Jean-Marie Dubois. “Eastern Townships.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 7 Feb. 2006,. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026.

---. “Lennoxville.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 7 Feb. 2006, . Accessed 15 Apr. 2026.