Municipal candidates vow to protect English services in Sherbrooke's only bilingual borough

The three candidates vying to become Lennoxville's next borough chair will have to convince voters they're the best suited for preserving the district's bilingual status.

Lennoxville is the only borough in Sherbrooke, Que., that is officially bilingual, meaning the municipality provides English and French services to its citizens.

But its bilingual status was put in jeopardy last spring, when the Legault government unveiled Bill 96. The legislation would revoke a municipality or borough's bilingual status if English speakers don't make up the majority of its population.

Lennoxville falls under that category, because 49 per cent of its residents are anglophones, according to 2011 census data, the most recently available government data for the district.

There is a loophole in Bill 96 for municipalities that don't meet the threshold for English speakers, however. They can keep their bilingual status if their municipal councils vote to do so within 120 days of the bill's adoption.

Unanimous support to preserve bilingual status among candidates

Lennoxville's incumbent borough chair, Claude Charron, told CBC's Breakaway host Alison Brunette that keeping Lennoxville bilingual would be a priority for him, if he is re-elected. 

"I think it's very important for the whole of Sherbrooke to have a bilingual borough," he said, pointing out how useful it was when the city hosted the 2013 Canada Summer Games and was able to offer English services to out-of-province athletes.

Charron said he wants to find a permanent solution to avoid having to pass a resolution on Lennoxville's bilingualism every time a new census comes out.

"I'm asking for a status quo on that so that we keep our status until we don't want it anymore," he said.

But he acknowledged that his power to do that was potentially limited because the matter is a provincial one. "We can only try to influence, that's the only thing we can do," he said.

His two opponents, candidates Bertrand Collins and Catherine Duguay, also said fighting for Lennoxville's bilingual status is one of their priorities. 

Collins, the outgoing borough councillor for the Fairview district in Lennoxville, told Breakaway that the residents he spoke with were afraid of losing access to English services.

"For our borough it's not good at all," he said. "There's some people, they're going to move away, they'll be afraid."

"This is one of the things that I will put my neck on," he told Breakaway, adding that he had already spoken with two of the candidates running for mayor in Sherbrooke about the issue. "We gotta protect the people here, we gotta protect our bilingualism."

Duguay, who is running with the municipal party Sherbrooke Citoyen alongside mayoral candidate Évelyne Beaudin, echoed Collins' words.

"I want to make sure that people still have services in English if it's what they need," she told Breakaway. "Bilingualism is a big issue for a lot of people and fellow residents."

She said that if she is elected, she would use the loophole available in Bill 96 to protect Lennoxville's bilingualism. 

"That's the thing we can do as a city council, and with Évelyine Baudin, it's what we want to do," she said.

All three of Sherbrooke's main candidates for mayor also said they would support keeping Lennoxville's bilingual status.

Lennoxville residents will vote on who they think can best do that on November 7.