I played football with Jack Vance, but again, not well.” Following graduation from high school in Tweed and receiving a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Ottawa, he returned to Tweed to work in the family fuel business for a year and a half before studying law at Osgoode Hall. LeSage remarked, “I've presided in every county or district courthouse in Ontario.”
Justice LeSage was born and raised in Tweed, Ontario. Third of four children, his father was of French Canadian ancestry.