About Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe

Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe

Overview

Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe is a French-language weekly newspaper published in Saint-Hyacinthe, in Quebec's Montérégie region, and is by a wide margin the oldest outlet in this directory still in continuous publication. Founded on 24 February 1853, it has appeared without interruption ever since, and it is recognised as the dean of the French-Canadian press — the oldest French-language newspaper in America still on the market. Owned for three generations by the Chartier family, it is one of the very few Quebec weeklies of its age that never passed into the hands of the province's press conglomerates, and it has remained an independent, locally owned paper while most of its contemporaries were bought, merged or closed. From its offices at 655 avenue Sainte-Anne, in the heart of downtown Saint-Hyacinthe, the paper covers the city and the surrounding Maskoutains region, an agricultural and agri-food centre of the Montérégie. Its editor-in-chief and editorialist is Martin Bourassa. In 2026 the paper is in its 174th year of publication, still appearing weekly in print and publishing daily on its website.

History

Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe was launched on 24 February 1853 by Pierre-Joseph Guitté, a French immigrant, together with Alexandre DeGranpré. The new weekly was liberal in allegiance and set out to defend the interests of Catholic French Canadians in Lower Canada in the aftermath of the Act of Union of 1840; it campaigned for the abolition of seigneurial tenure and against annexation to the United States. The first issues were handwritten before being typeset, and the paper quickly built a reputation for elegant, serious writing. Its nineteenth-century pages carried the work of some of the most notable French-Canadian journalists of the era, among them Oscar Dunn, Pierre Boucher de la Bruère, Jules Tardivel, Médéric Lanctôt and René Montarville Boucher de la Bruère; Honoré Mercier, a future premier of Quebec, and Henri Bourassa, the founder of Le Devoir, also figure in the paper's long roster of editors and contributors.

Controversy marked the early decades: articles reprinted from an Illinois journal and sharp comments on the 1860 visit of the Prince of Wales displeased clergy and local notables, and Guitté sold the paper to Louis Delorme, under whom it became a conservative organ. The paper remained a partisan voice for more than a century, until 1969, when editor Pierre Bornais announced that its columns would be open to all ideas regardless of party. In the mid-1930s the paper passed to Joseph Chartier — a local figure who served as the area's member of the National Assembly from 1944 to 1955 — and it has belonged to the Chartier family ever since. The current publisher, Benoît Chartier, represents the third generation of the family; through his company DBC Communications he has also acquired neighbouring titles, including L'Oeil Régional of Beloeil and Les 2 Rives of Sorel-Tracy, both bought from TC Media in 2017. The paper marked its 125th anniversary in 1978 and its 150th in 2003, the latter with a commemorative album published that year and tributes in the National Assembly and the House of Commons.

Programming and Content

The Courrier's content is the full record of life in Saint-Hyacinthe and the Maskoutains: municipal politics and council business, the courts and police, business and the region's dominant agri-food sector, education, health, culture and sport. Saint-Hyacinthe styles itself Quebec's agri-food capital, home to the Institut de technologie agroalimentaire and a large exhibition and congress sector, and the paper's pages follow those institutions closely — its recent reporting includes the financing of Saint-Hyacinthe Technopole, major construction projects such as the city's congress centre, and the national debate over compensation for news media. Editorial comment remains a distinctive feature: the paper built its name on strong editorial positions in the great debates of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its editor-in-chief still writes a regular editorial column. The paper has historically published in dated weekly sections — in its archival form, separate cahiers for news, sport, opinion and community life — alongside classified advertising and the public notices of the city and the surrounding municipalities. All content is in French.

Audience and Reach

Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe serves the city of Saint-Hyacinthe, which had a population of 57,239 at the 2021 census, and the surrounding municipalities of the Les Maskoutains regional county municipality. It is the established paper of record for the area: its longevity and its unbroken run since 1853 give it an institutional place in the region that few community papers anywhere in Canada can match. Its standing in the profession is documented by its awards record — since 1970 it has been named Quebec's weekly of the year (Hebdo de l'année) more than ten times, described in the National Assembly in 1998 as an absolute record in its category. No current independently audited circulation figure for the paper is published, and none is asserted here; its reach is best described in terms of its market position as the region's long-standing weekly of record and the daily audience of its website. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec holds a digitised run of the paper from 1853 to 2017, a measure of its documentary importance to the province.

Digital Presence

The paper publishes on its website, lecourrier.qc.ca, where its reporting appears between weekly print editions and where readers can follow municipal, business, cultural and sports coverage from across the Maskoutains. The site is active and current: regional media monitoring for the Montérégie cited Courrier articles published in the week of 8 October 2026, including coverage of Saint-Hyacinthe's first book fair and of a public art installation at the Jardin Daniel A. Séguin. The historic paper is also one of the most completely preserved in Quebec: BAnQ Numérique offers its digitised issues from its founding in 1853 through 2017, including its anniversary albums of 1978 and 2003, making the full nineteenth- and twentieth-century run of the paper publicly consultable. The Courrier's journalists are tracked by media-monitoring services such as Muck Rack, where its editor-in-chief's bylines are catalogued.

Ownership and Organisation

Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe is owned by the Chartier family, which has held it for three generations since the 1930s. Its publisher is Benoît Chartier, who also heads DBC Communications inc., the Saint-Hyacinthe-based company through which the family's newspaper holdings are organised. DBC Communications also publishes L'Oeil Régional (Beloeil), acquired from TC Media in March 2017, Les 2 Rives (Sorel-Tracy), acquired from TC Media in October 2017, Le Clairon de Saint-Hyacinthe, La Pensée de Bagot and Gestion et Technologies Agricoles. Benoît Chartier has served as president of Hebdos Québec, the provincial association of weekly newspapers, a role in which he publicly championed federal legislation requiring digital platforms to compensate news media; commentary on that legislation appeared in the Courrier's own pages in 2022. The family's connection with the region's print industry is older than its ownership of the paper — Transcontinental acquired the Chartier family's Saint-Hyacinthe printing plant in 1979. Day-to-day editorial direction is in the hands of editor-in-chief Martin Bourassa, who writes the paper's editorials, leading a local newsroom based at the paper's downtown offices.

Contact and Availability

Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe is published weekly from its offices at 655 avenue Sainte-Anne, in downtown Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, and is available across the city and the Maskoutains region. Its current reporting can be read at any time on its website, lecourrier.qc.ca, and its historical issues from 1853 to 2017 can be consulted free of charge through BAnQ Numérique. Readers, advertisers and community organisations deal with the paper through its Saint-Hyacinthe office and its website.