Britney Ellis Rahman- Trudel – Contributor

When I was little, my parents studied at Bishop’s University. At the time, my home address was 92 Oxford Crescent, near the corner of Belvidere in Lennoxville, Quebec. Now, more than 20 years later, I find myself living two street corners from my old home, but also in a different town. My address is now College Street in Sherbrooke, the same street I knew as Belvedere growing up.

Photo courtesy of Britney Ellis Rahman- Trudel

The change of a street name may seem slight, even insignificant, but it symbolizes everything that is wrong with the merger of Lennoxville and Sherbrooke, which occurred in 2002. The name Belvedere is not a random name that was chosen for this street. There used to be a farm owned by the Belvedere family, which served as one of the delimitations of the town of Lennoxville. This was why both Lennoxville and Sherbrooke had Belvedere streets and the reason they intersected where they did. However, having two streets with the same name, especially two that intersect one another, makes little sense from an urban planning perspective, so with a stroke of a pen, the name College was extended west of Queen and up the hill, erasing this part of our beloved town’s history.

This first act of disrespect against the unique identity and character of Lennoxville marked the beginning of what has been a slow but intense process of assimilation and erasure for the wonderful culture Lennoxville once had.

When I was a student at Lennoxville Elementary, we had annual visits from the fire department. They showed us their equipment, taught us about fire safety, and gave us a better sense of connection to our community and to the people working to keep it safe. This was, of course, the Lennoxville-Ascott fire department. The Sherbrooke department has no time.

Around the winter holidays, downtown Lennoxville used to be brilliantly decorated, every lamppost carrying wreaths, bows, streamers and/or coloured lights. Walking around was a magical experience. The city of Sherbrooke has no budget for such simple pleasures.

Lennoxville, like anywhere in Quebec, has always had roads and sidewalks in a state of disrepair, but it was nothing compared to the decrepit state our streets are in now. Then again, our taxes used to stay local, not get diluted into a large pool to help Sherbrooke pay for its ever-expanding portfolio of suburbs.

This was once an English town. As a child, I never had a problem getting around without speaking a word of French. Now I am having difficulty getting service in English at the dep, the Maxi, and even sometimes at the pharmacy.

Lastly, the city of Sherbrooke recently began a project by which they will turn half of Queen into a bike path with the stated goal of making it easier to access downtown. Queen Street is downtown. Removing all the parking spaces downtown will do nothing to improve access, so they must mean downtown Sherbrooke. They are limiting access to Lennoxville’s businesses in order to move shoppers from our town into theirs in a vain hope to revive the half-vacant slum at the corner of King and Wellington.

Lennoxville is a distinct town with a distinct identity, and we need to preserve that fact before it gets fully absorbed and turned into just another suburb of Sherbrooke. Throughout this school year, I plan to work with certain stakeholders in Lennoxville to create and move a petition for a demerger campaign to emancipate Lennoxville from Sherbrooke’s grasp. If this university and this town mean anything to you, I hope that you will spread the word and support the movement.