Brossard
City
Ville de Brossard
Quartier DIX30
Flag Seal Coat of arms
Motto:  Si Je Puis Oultre
Location within Urban Agglomeration of Longueuil.
Brossard Location in southern Quebec.
Coordinates: 45°28′N 73°27′W / 45.467°N 73.450°W / 45.467; -73.450[1]
Country	Canada
Province	Quebec
Region	Montérégie
RCM	None
Agglomeration	Longueuil
Founded	February 14, 1958
Incorporated (city)	1978
Amalgamated	January 1, 2002
Reconstituted	January 1, 2006
Founded by	Georges-Henri Brossard
Named for	Prominent family of the region and the city's founder
Government [2][3][4]
• Mayor	Doreen Assaad
• Governing Body	Brossard City Council
• MP	Alexandra Mendès (Brossard—Saint-Lambert, LPC)
• MNA	Linda Caron (La Pinière, Québec Liberal Party)
Area [2][5]
• Total	52.20 km2 (20.15 sq mi)
• Land	45.19 km2 (17.45 sq mi)
• Water	13.60 km2 (5.25 sq mi)
Population  (2021)[6]
• Total	91,525
• Density	2,025.3/km2 (5,246/sq mi)
• Change (2016–21)	6.8%
• Dwellings	37,275
Time zone	UTC−5 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
Postal code(s)	J4W to J4Z
Area code(s)	450 and 579
Highways A-10 A-15 A-20 A-30	R-132 R-134
NTS Map	31H6 Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu
GNBC Code	EQKVD
Québec Geocode	58007
CLSC Territory	Brossard-Saint-Lambert (16052)
Demonym	Brossardois(e)
Rank	67th
Website	https://www.brossard.ca/

Brossard (/brɒˈsɑːr, ˈbrɒsɑːrd/ bross-AR, BROSS-ard, French: [bʁɔsaʁ], locally [bʁɔsɑːʁ, bʁɔsɑɔ̯ʁ]) is a municipality in the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada and is part of the Greater Montreal area. According to the 2021 census, Brossard's population was 91,525.^[6] It shares powers with the urban agglomeration of Longueuil and was a borough of the municipality of Longueuil from 2002 to 2006.

According to the website of the city of Brossard, the municipality was named in honour of the Brossard family (the surname derives from a word meaning "brushwood"), a prominent settler family of the area whose presence was first attested in 1766.^[7] A member of this family, Georges-Henri Brossard, had been mayor of the predecessor parish municipality of La Prairie-de-la-Madeleine since 1944 and became the first mayor of Brossard.

Other names that were considered included Maisonneuve (which was also considered as a possible name for the Champlain Bridge), La Vérendrye, Marquetteville, or Forgetville. The latter name, in honour of the recently deceased Mgr. Anastase Forget, bishop of Saint-Jean; however, Premier Maurice Duplessis intervened, to avoid the connotations of the English word "forget," and the name Brossard was ultimately chosen.^[8]

History

The city of Brossard was founded on February 14, 1958, and was before part of La Prairie-de-la-Madeleine Parish. Its first mayor was Georges-Henri Brossard. At the very beginning, there were 3,400 inhabitants.

The city has some homes dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly along Prairies Road.

On August 8, 1964, a portion of land from Greenfield Park was added to Brossard. Furthermore, Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Cœur was annexed to Brossard on March 25, 1978, becoming the "A" section to form the current city.

In the 1970s, an attempt was made by René Désourdy to construct a cemetery in Brossard. The attempt failed due to the water table being too high in most of the city, and as of 2014 Brossard has no cemetery.

Brossard was forcibly merged into the city of Longueuil on January 1, 2002, as a result of municipal reorganization in Quebec. ^[9] and a demerger movement was started by Pierre Senécal, Jacques St-Amant and Gilles Larin which resulted in a municipal referendum, the largest demerger vote in Québec, that took place on June 20, 2004. 38.70% of the 50,539 qualified voters voted YES for demerger,^[10] which met the requirements (35% or more of total voting population) needed for de-amalgamation. As a result, Brossard would continue to be a borough of the city of Longueuil only until the end of 2005.

On January 1, 2006, Brossard was reconstituted as a city and Jean-Marc Pelletier was elected as the new mayor. However, Brossard still remains part of the urban agglomeration of Longueuil and thus, Brossard sits on the agglomeration council which determines certain powers of reconstituted cities.

On November 11, 2017, Doreen Assad was elected mayor of Brossard, the first woman of Egyptian descent to hold such position in Canada .^[11]

Geography

Brossard is surrounded by four municipalities on the South Shore of Montreal: Saint-Lambert, Longueuil (Borough of Greenfield Park and Borough of Saint-Hubert), Carignan and La Prairie. Brossard is situated on the Saint Lawrence River to the west and by the Saint-Jacques River to the south. (see Geographic location section below)

Many parks are scattered throughout the city of Brossard, including Parc écologique des Sansonnets. The parks are connected to the other areas of the city by about 37 km (23 miles) of biking paths.^[12] The city also has a municipal library building connected to its city hall building via an indoor passageway.

Brossard is subdivided into many smaller sections. These sections are characterized by having street names that all begin with the same letter of the alphabet. The only notable exceptions are few major arteries (such as Taschereau Boulevard and Rome Boulevard) that span across two or more sections. The lettered sectors were created under a 1960s planning and zoning scheme, pursuant to a guiding plan established by the engineering firm of Beauchemin, Beaton et Lapointe, and had the goal of easier wayfinding in the absence of a right-angled street grid. Some of the sectors correspond to former neighbourhoods or municipalities, as follows:^[13]

Some constructions in the "A" and "R" sections of Brossard are older than the city itself because they were built in the former communities of Notre-Dame-du-Sacré Coeur and Brosseau Station, respectively. The "M" and "V" sections are the first neighbourhoods built after the inauguration of Brossard in 1958.

Two sparsely inhabited parts of Brossard, containing no streets other than main arteries and industrial roads, are arbitrarily called the "X" and "Y" sections.

Climate

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Brossard had a population of 91,525 living in 35,885 of its 37,275 total private dwellings, a change of 6.8% from its 2016 population of 85,721. With a land area of 45.19 km² (17.45 sq mi), it had a population density of 2,025.3/km² (5,245.6/sq mi) in 2021.^[18]

Home Languages

Aside from French, a variety of other languages are spoken in Brossard on a daily basis, as according to the 2021 census. The prominent languages spoken primarily at home and their relative share are French (43%), English (18%), Mandarin (6%), Yue (4%), Spanish (4%) and Arabic (3%).

Ethnicity

Brossard is among the most multicultural municipalities in Greater Montreal as there are 30 ethnic groups that represent at least 1% of the population. According to the 2021 census the prominent ethnic groups and their relative share are Chinese (16%), French (14%), Canadian (13%). Québécois (5%) and Irish (4%)^[19]

Percentages are calculated as a proportion of the total number of respondents and may total more than 100% due to dual responses.
All ethnocultural ancestries of more than 1% are listed in the table above according to the exact terminology used by Statistics Canada.^[20]

Housing

Brossard is a mainly residential suburb with a moderate diversity of structural styles. The most popular styles of housing are semi-detached houses which represent 44% of private dwellings and apartment buildings with fewer than five storeys which represent 31% of private dwellings.

Mother tongue languages

Statistics for the population according to mother tongue (the first language learned and still remembered) vary significantly from the statistics for home language (the language spoken most often at home), as well as also varying significantly from the statistics for official language usage.