Westmount

Date: May 11, 2026
Author: Jade Lemieux

While Montreal is well-known as the largest Francophone city in the Americas, most people do not know that the Island of Montreal is not actually a single city but contains a few different enclaved municipalities. Therefore, if you find yourself driving across the island and notice a specific shift in the style and architecture of the environment, you might have just crossed into a different municipality. Furthermore, if you look at road signage and start seeing English “Stop” signs, instead of the usual “Arrêt” signs used throughout the rest of Québec, then you know you are now in Westmount.

As its name suggests, Westmount lies on the western flank of Mount Royal (the largest mountain on the island and important landmark), and it is recognized as an independent municipality with its own city council and government. Just like the wider region of Montreal, ascribed as one of the “bilingual capitals of the world,” a large portion of Westmount’s population speaks both French and English. More interestingly, however, 67.8% of its 20,350 residents record English as their main language spoken, with 48.7% of the population noting English as their mother tongue. Westmount, therefore, has been known for most of its history as the “Anglophone enclave” of Montreal.

The known history of Westmount begins before the 15th century. An ancient burying ground discovered toward the end of the 19th century points to the presence of, most likely, the Illinois or, possibly, a different Algonquin tribe in the area before the Hochelagans, who are the second known inhabitants of the region. With the arrival of French colonizers and the establishment of the Seminary of St. Sulpice in 1684, the land began to be divided amongst French settlers, and the area was named Côte St-Antoine. It wasn’t until a few generations after the British conquest, however, that the sector began to develop into the city it is today. Its position on the slopes of Mount Royal and its proximity to (what was then) the City of Montreal attracted affluent Anglophone business owners throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1895, the Town of Côte St.-Antoine changed its name to the Town of Westmount as it began a rapid economic growth at the onset of the 20th century. Westmount’s closeness with the bigger City of Montreal offered it some benefits of urban life, like public transportation and increased commercial activity, while also maintaining enough distance to preserve its rural aspects, which proved attractive to families with young children.

While Westmount’s linguistic identity has shifted to become more bilingual since the city’s inception, its government and citizens have worked (and still do) to maintain their distinct cultural character and especially their political independence. In the early 2000s, the provincial government of Québec (led by the separatist Parti Québécois) launched a successful campaign to merge various municipalities throughout the province, including merging the City of Montreal with the other municipalities on the island. Although speakers of the pro-amalgamation movement focused their discourse on social equality and efficiency, the underlying knowledge that “amalgamation would eliminate a large number of predominantly anglophone municipalities, including Westmount,” would have been attractive to the Parti Québecois due to the inherent ties between language politics and separatism (Harris). The mayor of Westmount at the time, Peter Trent, led an anti-amalgamation movement and made municipal independence a primary issue of the 2003 provincial election. A new Liberal government was elected with the promise that it would enable municipalities to vote in a referendum to de-merge and re-establish their autonomy. As such, Westmount—along with many other municipalities—regained its independence in 2006, an independence they still maintain to this day.

References

"About the City | City of Westmount." City of Westmount, 2024, www.westmount.org/en/city/discover-westmount/about-the-city. 

Harris, Richart. "The Politics of Municipal Mergers (and Demergers) in Montreal. Métropolitiques, 6 Mar. 2013, www.metropolitiques.eu/The-politics-of-municipal-mergers.html. Accessed 14 Apr. 2026.

Tousignant, Isa. "Montreal Neighbourhoods: Discover Outremont and Westmount." Tourisme Montreal, 18 May 2018, www.mtl.org/en/experience/tale-two-mountains. Accessed 14 Apr. 2026.