On the Canadian side, Windsor was still 50% Francophone. Sandwich, home of Assumption parish, was even more French than that. Further downriver, the descendants of the first French-Canadian settlers in Ontario still comprised the greater part of the population at Petite Côte (modern day LaSalle), Rivière-aux-Canards and McGregor.

Windsor’s Francophone population included members of this earlier group as well as more recent arrivals from Quebec. This second group of Francophones had started arriving in earnest once the Great Western Railroad was built in 1854. Most of them settled along Lake St-Clair, establishing communities and parishes in Tecumseh, Belle-Rivière, Saint-Joachim, Pointe-aux-Roches, Tilbury, Pain Court and Grande Pointe.