About Le Clairon

Le Clairon

Overview

Le Clairon is a French-language weekly newspaper published in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, the principal city of the Les Maskoutains regional county municipality in the Montérégie. Published today by DBC Communications inc., the Saint-Hyacinthe company owned by the Chartier family, it is a free-distribution local weekly covering Saint-Hyacinthe and the surrounding Maskoutain communities, with its website at leclairon.qc.ca. The paper is one of the historic titles of the Quebec regional press: it was founded in 1912 by Télesphore-Damien Bouchard, one of the most combative Liberal politicians of his era, and for much of the twentieth century it was the Liberal "red" voice of Saint-Hyacinthe against the conservative Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe — a rivalry that has long since settled into common ownership, since DBC Communications now publishes both papers.

The Clairon operates as the second weekly in the DBC stable alongside the paid Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe, and its current operation is a matter of recent public record: the member of Parliament for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot disclosed advertising purchases from "Le Clairon Saint-Hyacinthe et région" in December 2024, again in May 2025 and again in December 2025, and DBC Communications' own corporate site lists the Clairon among the weeklies it currently publishes. Its recent print editions sighted in the record — February 2020 in BAnQ's collection and the edition of 19 December 2023 in which the MRC des Maskoutains published a public notice — are dated on Tuesdays, where its 1990s editions were dated on Saturdays.

History

Le Clairon was founded at Saint-Hyacinthe in 1912, when Télesphore-Damien Bouchard — journalist, mayor of Saint-Hyacinthe and Liberal politician — transformed the Liberal paper L'Union, published since 1873, into a new publication under the Clairon name. BAnQ's catalogue history describes a paper that expressed its founder's positions: defence of the region's interests, and campaigns for compulsory schooling, public ownership of the hydroelectric resource and improved workers' conditions, waged against the Conservatives, the clergy and the nationalists, and against the more conservative local rival, Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe. Bouchard directed the paper's editorial line until 1942 and collaborated with it until its sale in 1954. Its early print runs, recorded by press historians André Beaulieu and Jean Hamelin, were 825 copies in 1913, 2,750 in 1933 and 6,024 in 1960. The paper also circulated beyond its home town: its 1946 masthead records that it was sold at news depots in Montreal and Quebec City under the nameplates Le Clairon-Montréal and Le Clairon-Québec, then appearing each Friday.

The Clairon's contributor list reflects its place in Quebec public life. René Lévesque, later premier of Quebec, wrote a substantial weekly film column for the paper in 1946–1949 and political columns for it in the late 1960s — a body of work substantial enough to be republished in book form in 2022, with the current publisher's cooperation. Pierre Laporte signed a column on provincial politics in its pages in the early 1960s, and the cartoonist Normand Hudon was among its contributors. In 1954 Bouchard sold the paper to Jacques Lagacé, and it became Le Clairon maskoutain (1954–1961), extending its regional coverage to Acton Vale, Upton and Saint-Valérien in 1954 and to Beloeil, McMasterville and Otterburn Park in 1955. Yves Michaud served as its editor-in-chief from 1954 to 1962, maintaining its opposition to the Union nationale government. As Le Clairon Saint-Hyacinthe (1961–1971) the paper swung to the sovereigntist cause in 1969 under Rosario Rajotte, a turn that cost it its traditional Liberal support network; it ceased publication on 24 March 1971, then reappeared exactly one month later as the Nouveau Clairon, a free vehicle devoted to local news that had definitively set aside political engagement.

In the early 1970s the paper became a free weekly of large circulation, and its title went through the sequence recorded in BAnQ's succession notices: Clairon de Saint-Hyacinthe (1991–1995), then Le Clairon régional de Saint-Hyacinthe (1996–2011), published by DBC Communications inc. as a free weekly — its 1997 masthead describes it as founded in 1912, a free regional weekly published each Saturday by DBC Communications from 592 rue Sainte-Marie, Saint-Hyacinthe, with Denis Lacasse as publisher and Benoît Chartier as associate publisher. The current series, styled Le Clairon, Saint-Hyacinthe et région, follows from 2011. The paper marked its centenary in 2012 with a souvenir booklet, "100 ans, 1912-2012."

Programming and Content

The modern Clairon is a general local weekly for Saint-Hyacinthe and the Maskoutains: municipal and MRC affairs, regional development, agriculture in one of Quebec's principal agri-food territories, community and school life, culture, sports, classified advertising and obituaries. Its civic role is documented in the record of the institutions around it — the MRC des Maskoutains, for example, published a public notice in its edition of 19 December 2023, and local elected officials buy advertising in its pages year after year. The February 2020 issue preserved by BAnQ shows the paper's contemporary mix, including regional features such as coverage of Saint-Hyacinthe's Expo-Habitat home show, and its masthead of that date names Benoit Chartier as publisher and Martin Bourassa as editor-in-chief, lists the paper as a member of Hebdos Québec with certified circulation, and gives its newsroom contact as redaction@lecourrier.qc.ca, shared with its sister paper, and its advertising contact as publicite@courrierclairon.qc.ca. The partisan identity that defined the Clairon for its first six decades belongs to its history; the present-day paper is a community weekly of the standard Quebec type.

Audience and Reach

Le Clairon is distributed free across Saint-Hyacinthe and the surrounding Les Maskoutains municipalities, the distribution model it has followed since its 1971 relaunch and which its 1990s masthead states explicitly ("hebdomadaire régional à circulation gratuite"). Its historical paid circulation figures — 825 copies in 1913, 2,750 in 1933 and 6,024 in 1960 — belong to its subscription era and are quoted from the historical record, not as current data. No current audited circulation figure for the title is published in the sources consulted for this profile; the paper's February 2020 masthead records that its circulation was certified through Hebdos Québec, the provincial association of weekly newspapers. Its measured present-day footprint is instead visible in the behaviour of its market: regional institutions place statutory notices in it, and the constituency office of the sitting member of Parliament purchased advertising from it repeatedly through 2024 and 2025, the most recent disclosed purchase dating to 16 December 2025.

Digital Presence

The paper's website is leclairon.qc.ca, the address printed in its own mastheads since at least 2020. DBC Communications presents its titles through its corporate site, dbccomm.qc.ca, which lists the Clairon among its current weeklies; the group's papers share production and sales infrastructure in downtown Saint-Hyacinthe, and the Clairon's newsroom has used the shared Courrier contact address in its recent mastheads. BAnQ preserves the paper's long print history — the Clairon titles account for several hundred digitized issues in its heritage collection, including the 18 February 2020 issue of the current series — while the title's present-day publishing is weekly in print with its web presence at leclairon.qc.ca. A visual check of the live site and current masthead remains part of this profile's publish-stage quality review.

Ownership and Organisation

Le Clairon is published by DBC Communications inc., a company founded by the Chartier family and headquartered in downtown Saint-Hyacinthe, where it employs more than 70 people. Benoit Chartier is its president, publisher and chief executive. DBC publishes five other titles alongside the Clairon: Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe — founded in 1853 and described by TC Transcontinental as the longest-running French-language newspaper in America — L'Oeil Régional of Beloeil, Les 2 Rives of Sorel-Tracy (acquired from TC Media in October 2017), La Pensée de Bagot, and the agricultural periodical Gestion et Technologie agricoles; the group also includes the Publi-Encarts flyer operation and Expo-Habitat. The Chartier family's roots in Saint-Hyacinthe print go back generations: TC Transcontinental acquired the family's Saint-Hyacinthe printing plant in 1979, and the family has owned Le Courrier for three generations. Within the group, the Clairon and the Courrier — rivals for a century — are now produced by the same organization, with the Clairon as the free weekly complementing the Courrier's paid circulation.

Contact and Availability

Le Clairon is published weekly in print in Saint-Hyacinthe and the Les Maskoutains region of the Montérégie, Quebec, and is available online at leclairon.qc.ca. Its publisher is DBC Communications inc., headquartered in downtown Saint-Hyacinthe; the paper's February 2020 masthead gave distribution enquiries at 450 773-3190 and advertising at publicite@courrierclairon.qc.ca. Current editions and subscription or advertising information are carried on the paper's website and through DBC Communications' corporate site.