Two years ago, the MRC of Brome-Missisquoi set up a small committee with the Office d’Habitation de Brome-Missisquoi to help address the housing crisis in the region.

The committee’s mission was to help people that were looking for housing and those that were going to lose their home and needed help finding a new place to live, particularly around the provincial moving date of July 1. The committee also found temporary housing for people living in-between homes and that had nowhere to go.

The 12 Days of Action for the Elimination of Violence Against Women movement was started by a group of pro-feminist men and young boys in Ontario in 1991 following the massacre at École Polytechnic in Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989 that claimed the lives of 14 women.

Dec. 6 became a significant date in the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Every year, in over 60 countries, feminists and pro-feminists wear a white ribbon to commemorate the antifeminist massacre.

William Colley is a born and raised Eastern Townships entrepreneur looking to make his mark in the region by providing Townshippers’ with a unique and diverse culinary experience.

As chef and owner of the popular La Fermette Fumée: BBQ & Grill Cuisine Tex-Mex in Cowansville, Colley is looking to branch out with a new line of hot sauces called Piments Fort des Cantons, a ready-to-go meal company La Fermette Express, and an open concept reception hall known as La Mangeoire.

This spring information came to light that Hockey Canada was involved in an out-of-court settlement for a sexual assault case involving hockey players from the 2018 junior hockey team, bringing attention to the toxic culture that can exist within sports.

Federal Minister of Sports and Member of Parliament (MP) for Brome-Missisquoi Pascale St-Onge immediately addressed the situation by cutting federal funding to Hockey Canada and setting certain conditions that the she expects the organization to meet.

Best-selling author and Townshipper Louise Penny is celebrating the launch of the Amazon Studio series Three Pines based on her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novel series.

To highlight the launch, Theatre Lac-Brome and Amazon Studios held an event in Knowlton on Nov. 24 where attendees got a sneak peak at the first two episodes of the series.

The Virtual Walk to Fight All Cancers, coordinated by the Yamaska Valley Optimist Club (YVOC) in collaboration with the Brome-Missisquoi Perkins Foundation (BMP Foundation), launched on Oct. 2 and concluded on Nov. 2 with much success.

In its 21st edition, citizens and business owners participated in support of the cause. The Virtual Walk originally raised $76,000 and despite its conclusion, donations are accepted up until Christmas. As a result, the new total amount raised is $82,700.

On Oct. 3, Quebecers headed to the polls to cast their vote in the 2022 provincial election.

In Brome-Missisquoi, Isabelle Charest, candidate for Coalition avenir Québec, was officially sworn in as the region’s Member of the National Assembly (M.N.A.) and as the Minister of Sports, Recreation, and Outdoors.

The Canadian Pacific Railway’s (CP) Holiday Train will be making stops in the Eastern Townships region in Lac-Mégantic, Sherbrooke, and Farnham on Nov. 24.

For 24 years, the CP Holiday Train has been spreading joy across Canada and the United States.

OSEntreprendre is highlighting “Global Entrepreneur Week” by coordinating conferences in schools across the province.

With a mission to foster entrepreneurship in Quebec, over 27,000 students from elementary school up to university will participate in the organizations’s “Semaine des entrepreneurs à l’école” (Entrepreneurs’ Week at school).

The Lac-Brome Museum has found a new executive director in Sutton resident Denis Piquette.

Piquette has an extensive career in marketing, advertising, and working alongside non-profit organizations to build their brand.

He moved to the Eastern Townships ten years ago and he was on the board of directors for Theatre Lac-Brome. With his new role, he hopes to bring the museum, established in 1897, to the next level.

The Town of Sutton has negotiated an agreement with the owners of the Vieux-Verger property, located between Domaine-Mon-Louis and Seymour Street, to purchase the 21-acre site for $1,409,000 million.

The town decided to purchase the property with the hopes of constructing an affordable housing development for young families; a project that the owners have been trying to get off the ground for over a decade.

Working with cyclists for over two decades, the Centre National de Cyclisme de Bromont (CNCB) officially opened the doors to the Sylvan Adams Velodrome Multi-sport Centre Desjardins, the only indoor velodrome in Quebec, at the beginning of Oct.

The CNCB originally only had an outdoor velodrome after purchasing the cycling track used at the olympics in Atlanta in 1996. The track was moved to Bromont in 2000. The CNCB also had an outdoor pump track and a BMX track.

Jennifer Pepler-Quinn, Dilon Elston, Alex Beck, and Chuck Pepler have joined forces to fill in a gap for public transportation in Brome-Missisquoi with new taxi company QuEB Taxi.

Since they were young adolescents, it’s been a dream for Elston and Beck to make a career out of anything that involved a steering wheel.

Over the last couple of years, fraudulent scams of all types has become an issue of concern.

According to Jeff Horncastle, acting client and communications outreach officer for the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, investment fraud and romance fraud are at the top of the list in Canada with dollar losses almost doubling since 2020. The situation is similar in Quebec.

In collaboration with Organisme De Bassin Versant De La Yamaska (OBV Yamaska) and Renaissance Lac-Brome (RLB), the Town of Brome Lake has unveiled its new action plan “Action Plan for a Healthy Lake” to protect and and preserve Brome Lake.

The action plan spans from 2022 to 2026 and is compromised of 35 points grouped under seven orientations to address the five identified threats to the lake, including phosphorus and cyanobacteria.

The municipality of Frelighsburg is preparing for the opening of its first daycare in the upcoming months under the Quebec government’s daycare pilot project that was launched in April.

The pilot project encourages municipalities across Quebec to find a municipal space that can serve as a daycare to help address the challenge of accessing day care services in Quebec.

The Monteregian Hills is an ecologically valuable chain of ten hills that extend from the municipality of Oka in the Laurentians and encompasses 25 municipalities up to Notre-Dame-des-Bois in the Eastern Townships, this includes Brome, Shefford, and Mégantic.

Since the spring of 2022, the MRC of Brome-Missisquoi has been collaborating with the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) whom recently adopted an action plan for the recognition and protection of the Monteregian Hills, which includes Bromont’s Mont Brome.

On October 20, members of Renaissance Lac-Brome (RLB) and volunteers from the community came together to take part in a tree planting initiative here in Brome Lake.

It’s one of the many projects the group has spearheaded over the years to ensure the water quality of Brome Lake and to protect the environment.

In other news, RLB is rebranding. Don Joyce, member of the board for RLB, gave CIDI 99.1 FM all the details.

Ilze Epners has been a member of Optimist International for 34 years; a non-profit organization that supports the development of youth through various projects and initiatives.

She started Brome-Missisquoi’s Yamaska Valley Optimist Club and restarted clubs in Cowansville and Bromont.

Last year, Epners took on a new initiative and formed Junior Optimist Clubs in three local schools, Knowlton Academy, Heroes Memorial, and Massey-Vanier High School, to give youth the opportunity to get involved in their communities.

The Townships Sun, a non-profit magazine in the Eastern Townships, was founded in 1973 by the Eastern Townships Social Action Group.

Its first issue was published on February 8, 1974 with the goal of helping the English speaking community.