BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

The 2025 municipal election season has officially started in the West Island, with Beaconsfield councillor Martin St-Jean launching his bid to be the next mayor of the demerged city. But, with long-time incumbent Georges Bourelle not yet decided if he will seek a fourth term, the question is: Will there be a race?

“We need new inspiring leadership,” St-Jean said in an interview Monday with The 1510 West. “I want to tackle the challenges ahead for Beaconsfield.”

These challenges, he said, include updating aging infrastructure while keeping an eye on the costs and preparing the mostly residential suburb for the future, a process that involves ensuring the tax burden does not overwhelm homeowners, he explained.

“We’re at a junction where the status quo doesn’t work for Beaconsfield any more,” St-Jean said.

St-Jean was elected to Beaconsfield council in 2020. A lawyer, now in private practice, he has work extensively in the municipal sector, serving as director of legal services and the city clerk’s office for the City of Westmount from 2015 to 2019; and as a lawyer for the City of Montreal, from 2011 to 2015, where he managed the process of awarding contracts. He also represented Montreal before the Charbonneau Commission, the provincial inquiry into corruption in the management of public construction contracts.

Beaconsfield has to look at how it will increase its population density, he said. First, because the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal is in the process of mandating the city to add housing density within its borders. But also because Beaconsfield has to find ways to diversify its tax revenues, through what St-Jean calls “soft densification” that would add a wider selection of housing options that will be affordable for young families and empty-nesters, and expand the city’s commercial sector.

“We have to be bold in our choices,” said the 58-year-old father of two. “Things have changed dramatically in the last four-five years.”

As for Bourelle, he will announce whether he will seek a fourth mandate as mayor in spring.

First elected in 2013, the 84-year-old Bourelle, who was the former president and CEO of Prévost Car, a Quebec-based firm that produces buses and touring coaches, admitted in an interview yesterday there is a “strong possibility that I would not return for a fourth term.”

“I will make my decision in June,” he said.

Bourelle has been at the front of the fight with the Montreal Agglomeration, which continues to increase costs on demerged municipalities. In 2019, Beaconsfield launched a $6-million lawsuit against Montreal for what it claims are unjust expenses charged to the suburb. In 2023, it increased its demand for compensation in the suit to $15 million.

Municipal elections will be held Nov. 2 in more than 1,000 municipalities in Quebec, including all towns and boroughs in the West Island.