About Westmount Independent

Westmount Independent

Overview

The Westmount Independent is a free English-language weekly newspaper serving Westmount, Quebec, an independent city enclaved within Montreal on the southern slope of Mount Royal. Published by Sherbrooke-Valois Inc., a small locally owned company based on Victoria Avenue in Westmount itself, the paper covers a single compact municipality of 19,658 residents (2021 census) spread over just over four square kilometres. Its masthead carries the slogan "We are Westmount," and its editorial formula is deliberately narrow: news from inside the city's boundaries, reported in depth, and delivered free to every household. The paper appears weekly in print, distributed mainly through Canada Post to homes in the H3Y and H3Z postal areas, with additional copies placed at dozens of drop sites around the city, and it is also published online at westmountindependent.com. Muck Rack's verified outlet listing describes it as "an independent, Westmount-owned, weekly newspaper distributed free in Westmount, Quebec, Canada." In a Montreal market where most community weeklies were absorbed by chains and later shut down, the Independent is a notable survivor: an independently owned, single-community paper that has outlived the corporate rival it was founded to challenge.

History

The Independent was created to fill a gap left by the decline of Westmount's historic paper, the Westmount Examiner, founded in 1935 and for decades run by the Sancton family as a fiercely local publication. After the Examiner passed through corporate owners — Publications Dumont and then Transcontinental — its production was moved out of Westmount to LaSalle, and its local character thinned. Citizen activist Heather Cutler approached local businessman David Price and convinced him that Westmount needed a paper produced locally and dominated by local content, as the Examiner had been in John Sancton's time. Price was not a journalist by training: he had worked five years in banking before joining the family book-publishing business, Price-Patterson, in 2004, and around 2006 he founded his own company, Sherbrooke-Valois, to publish newspapers and calendars. Its first product was Vivva Montreal, a lifestyle magazine and newsletter of reviews and country-weekending articles — described in a later account as a successful lifestyle newsletter critiquing movies, books and food in Westmount — through which Price learned printing, Canada Post distribution and advertising sales.

The Westmount Independent was launched in 2007, at first publishing twice a month; within about a year and a half it had become a weekly. Its founding team consciously reconnected with the old Examiner tradition: Laureen Sweeney, who had been John Sancton's senior writer at the Examiner, became the Independent's chief reporter, and the paper's layout was handled by Studio Melrose, headed by Ted Sancton, a member of the Examiner's founding family. Price himself served as publisher and editor while also writing stories, taking photographs, selling advertising and delivering copies to drop sites. The paper marked its first anniversary in 2008 with a profile of its publisher headlined by the observation that he had become "the new John Sancton." In 2009 Price launched a sister paper, the NDG Free Press, serving Hampstead, Côte Saint-Luc and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce; it published its final issue in early 2017, when Price confirmed that the Westmount Independent would continue. The Examiner, by then owned by Transcontinental, printed its last issue on October 21, 2015, leaving the Independent as Westmount's only locally produced newspaper. The paper's longevity since then is documented in its continuing coverage of city affairs, including the hard-fought Westmount municipal election of November 2, 2025, in which it published candidate coverage and editorial commentary on the three-way mayoral race won by Michael Stern.

Programming and Content

The Independent's content is almost exclusively Westmount news. Its core beat is municipal government: it covers a single city council — a mayor and eight councillors — in unusual detail, reporting debates over zoning, development and public works, such as the long-running controversy over the special planning programme for the city's southeast sector that dominated Westmount politics in 2025. Election coverage is a particular strength; a Concordia University study of English-language community newspapers in Montreal found that during the nine-week period it examined, the Independent published 29 municipal election items, more detailed than its competitors because it covers only one municipality. Regular features documented in its pages include a police report column based on information from the local police station, school and community news, real estate coverage of notable homes coming to market, local history, obituaries and community announcements, and small neighbourhood briefs — the "broken arm" items of quirky local incident that were a hallmark of the Sancton-era Examiner. Reader engagement is exceptionally high: the Concordia study counted no fewer than 35 letters to the editor across nine issues, all of them from within Westmount and all addressing community matters or earlier letters, a volume the study noted was high per capita even compared with much larger-circulation rivals. Letters are limited to 300 words, and the paper's editorial voice, often expressed in the publisher's own columns, is direct and opinionated on questions of development, taxation and city services.

Audience and Reach

The paper is distributed free, and its distribution model was one of its founding innovations. Rather than relying on carrier delivery, Sherbrooke-Valois arranged delivery through Canada Post to Westmount homes — its mastheads specify 10,000 copies delivered by Canada Post within the H3Y and H3Z postal areas — supplemented by roughly 1,000 copies distributed to more than 40 waiting-room and lobby drop sites, including the lobby of its own building at 310 Victoria Avenue, the Metro grocery store at Victoria and Sherbrooke, and Westmount Square. The audited circulation figures printed in its mid-2010s mastheads rose as high as 14,202 and 15,056 copies, figures the company presented as audited; those totals include the sister Free Press distribution in neighbouring communities. The audience is the whole of a small, dense and affluent city: Westmount's 19,658 residents (2021 census) live in 9,423 dwellings on about four square kilometres, and the community is predominantly anglophone — 48.7 per cent of residents reported English as their first language in the 2021 census — making it one of the most concentrated English-language newspaper markets in Quebec. Because the paper reaches effectively every household in a single municipality, media researchers have used it as a case study in hyperlocal publishing: April Lindgren's Local News Research Project profiled the Independent as an example of a small independent paper sustaining local news in a metropolitan market, crediting its "uber-local content" and loyal local advertisers.

Digital Presence

The Independent has published online at westmountindependent.com since its first year; its anniversary coverage in 2008 already boasted that the paper was "freely available via the internet" at that address, and full issues have circulated in PDF form online. The website remains the paper's digital home, and the outlet maintains a verified listing in the Muck Rack journalist database, which sources its description from the paper's own site. A current business listing places the newspaper's office at 310 Victoria Avenue, Suite G1, with weekday business hours. The paper's digital footprint is deliberately modest compared with chain-owned rivals — it has no app or paywall — and its public presence rests mainly on the website, its print distribution network and its role as the community's forum of record, reflected in the way other Westmount media and community blogs quote and discuss its election coverage and editorials. At the time of research the paper's domain could not be fetched directly by the research tools used for this profile, so its current operation in 2025–26 is documented here from third-party records — including contemporaneous accounts of its fall 2025 election issues — and a visual check of the live site is recommended at the publishing stage.

Ownership and Organisation

The Westmount Independent is owned and published by Sherbrooke-Valois Inc. of 310 Victoria Avenue, Suite 105, Westmount, Quebec H3Z 2M9. The company is David Price's own publishing firm, separate from the Price family's book-publishing business, Price-Patterson, which he also leads. Price serves as publisher and editor-in-chief and remains the paper's editor, a role confirmed in accounts of its 2025 election coverage. The mastheads published over its history list a small, stable team: Kristin McNeill as editor and editorial coordinator, chief reporter Laureen Sweeney, advertising sales through Arleen Candiotti and later Annika Melanson, and accounting and classified advertising through Beth Hudson, with layout by Studio Melrose under Ted Sancton. The same company published the NDG Free Press from 2009 until its closure in 2017. Presstime for the weekly edition is Monday at 10:30 a.m., with drop-site delivery aimed for Tuesdays. The paper is a member of the community of English-language Quebec weeklies — it is listed among the English-language weekly newspapers serving Quebec communities — and it has never been part of a chain, a point its own anniversary coverage stressed in contrasting its local ownership with a competitor "owned by a conglomerate based in Place Ville Marie."

Contact and Availability

The Westmount Independent is published weekly and is free. Print copies are delivered by Canada Post to homes across Westmount's H3Y and H3Z postal areas and are available at more than 40 drop sites in municipal buildings, stores and lobbies across the city, including 310 Victoria Avenue, the Sherbrooke Street exit of the Metro store at Victoria Avenue, and Westmount Square. The newspaper's office is at 310 Victoria Avenue in Westmount, Quebec H3Z 2M9 (Suite 105 in its print masthead; a current business listing shows Suite G1). Publisher and editor David Price can be reached at 514-935-4537; the editorial office number listed in its mastheads is 514-223-3578, advertising and sales 514-223-3567, and its fax number is 514-935-9241. Letters to the editor are welcomed — limited to 300 words and submitted by Friday at 10 a.m. for consideration in the following week's issue. The paper is published in English and is available online at westmountindependent.com.