What is now known as Dorchester square (it was known as Dominion square before it changed names) was a cemetery at first (around 1800) and it is there that the victim of the 1832 cholera epidemic were buried. But the cemetery became too small and was moved to the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges on Mont-Royal in 1855 (some coffins remain buried under the square).

It is surrounded by great buildings : Dominion square building to the north (that is where the main Info-Tourisme office is located), the Sun Life insurance building to the east, the Windsor hotel annex to the west and the Windsor train station (with it's hall of lost steps) and the Marie-Reine-du-Monde cathedral to the south. A monument dedicated to the memory of the soldiers killed during the Boers war, a statue of the scottish poet Robert Burns and a statue of Sir Wilrid Laurier (canadian prime minister) can be found in the square itself. On the south side of René-Levesque is the Place du Canada where a statue of John A. MacDonald (canadian prime minister) is located.