OPINION: Most important qualification to be a councillor

The main criteria was that the winning candidate not be named DAVE LEWINGTON.

This week, council held a special meeting to appoint a new councillor for Ward 8 (Lavigne).

There were four candidates seeking the position. In many people eyes the front-runner should have been Dave Lewington. If a by election would have been held instead of an appointment, Lewington would have certainly won without question. He is the only candidate who actually campaigned in Lavigne during the 2022 elections. Although the resigning councillor (Courchesne) was acclaimed, Lavigne residents still had to vote for a mayoral candidate and they overwhelmingly chose Lewington.

Lewington along with Christine Riberdy were the only ones who actually put in the work of a long 10+ week campaign in 2022. They are the only ones who put their own money on the line for the opportunity to serve the public. Lewington and Riberdy are also the only ones who volunteered to sit on municipal boards in 2022. Lewington currently sits on the Environmental Services Board.

But unfortunately Lewington missed the last line of qualifications in the public notice to fill the vacant seat. Although not officially written, it was obvious that the most important criteria (or maybe the only one) that the winning candidate had to fulfill was to not be named Dave Lewington.

The newly passed vacancy bylaw stipulates that members of council are to decide on who replaces a resigning councillor. But the spirit of the bylaw would lead us to believe that these elected officials should have chosen whom they believe the public wanted. Not who they wanted.

But that is not what happened on Wednesday. In a series of votes council chose George Pharand.

I have nothing against Pharand and I do think he could be a great representative for Lavigne. But he has not lived here for most of the last twenty years and just recently decided to retire in the region. He has not sat on any local boards and has not ran in any prior elections.

What likely garnered him so much support at council was his remarks. He spent the bulk of his time telling council how much he agreed with the need for the newly passed controversial bylaw. He even went a step further and claimed that opposition to this bylaw was due to “misinformation”.

His stated primary goal as councillor is to work on the mill site redevelopment. But the mill site project will likely be tied up in environmental assessments for the remainder of this council term. Most councillors know that there will never be any serious debates on the matter. So this was certainly a “safe issue” to address and signal to council that no real challenge to the status quo is forthcoming.

As opposed to Pharand (and the two other candidates), Lewington was not there to appease council but to speak on behalf of the actual residents and taxpayers. He outlined the serious reasons why council has lost a lot of trust. He politely offered himself as an option to bridge the gap between this council and the growingly frustrated public. He outlined his many qualifications and how he was “not suddenly interested” in this role.

But it was clear that community involvement, qualifications or prior election results were not determining factors in this appointment process. It was clear that the public’s will was not a determining factor either.

Councillors Pellerin and Tessier have been receptive to criticism and to asking tough questions, so they voted for Lewington. But the remaining six councillors split their votes between two candidates. When council moved to a second round, councillor Daniel Gagne changed his vote from Daniel Corriveau to Georges Pharand. This was an odd move considering no new information was provided and Corriveau was still in the running (he was not eliminated yet). This gave Pharand the majority he needed to win the nomination.

Anyone watching the deliberations could tell that this was not an exercise of choosing a candidate but more like a carefully played game of “anyone but Dave”.

I congratulate Pharand on his appointment. But like many, I am left outraged at the complete disregard to the democratic process.

It’s obvious that most councillors did not like Lewington. Not for personal reasons but because Lewington has been critical of some of this councils’ latest decisions. And that is why this appointment process was an affront to democratic values. Because councillors were able to once again ignore the public and simply choose someone who might make their job easier.

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