Published February 7, 2024

Chelsey St. Pierre – The Suburban LJI Reporter

Several Pointe-Claire city councilors dramatically walked out of the December 18 public meeting. The walk-out, councilors say, was triggered by out of turn and out of context comments by the mayor, highlighting the issue of contention within the city’s administration. The tension at the city of Pointe-Claire has been apparent to the public with unusual public debates going off the rails and longer than usual delays on administrative files such as the one mentioned at the last meeting, which sparked the debate to begin with.

“The mayor’s message is supposed to be discussing things happening at the city such as budget, garbage pick up etcetera. Instead he turned the meeting into a political message about how council does not support him,” Pointe-Claire city councilor, Eric Stork, told The Suburban. According to Stork, the mayor spoke out of turn during the councilors’ report portion of the meeting, which he says was added to the process of public meetings specifically to stop the mayor from interjecting “out of turn”.

The file in question is a request made to the City by the Archdiosese which occupies a portion of land in Pointe-Claire village. The request dates back to September 12, 2022. “We never signed off on anything. This was not brought to us. Just like poutine fest, he makes arrangements behind our backs, decides whatever he wants and when things don’t work out, he points the finger back at us at a public meeting,” Stork explained. “He is not doing his job correctly and blames council when residents take notice.”

According to Thomas, he did not speak out of turn as he says no official regulations state that he could not speak at that time. “I respected the processes completely. We have no by-law written for that circumstance,” Pointe-Claire mayor, Tim Thomas, told The Suburban. When asked about fingers being pointed back and forth between Thomas and his councilors, he said “I don’t point the finger, I am just trying to get the job done. They refused to accept my election victory since the beginning. I have in no way conducted myself on the same level as them. I have been a gentleman acting with grace. I have never been rude. I remain calm and behave with decorum.”

“We have different visions on development, the environment, climate change, and heritage. They are deliberately trying to disrupt the process so that people will blame the mayor, even planting people in public meetings cause disruptions,” Thomas explained. “I lose almost every single vote. We are not a united front. I was elected to speak on the vision of my campaign that the majority of citizens voted for. I am not there to promote the vision of (some) councilors. I have not altered anything and am doing exactly as I said I would during my election campaign. I am not betraying citizens’ expectations.”

City councilor Brent Cowan released a public letter calling for Thomas to resign. He told The Suburban that council has been reluctantly tolerating the mayor’s actions since his election. “He uses his position to push his own political partisan agenda.”

Thomas said there is no legal reason and it would be an irresponsible waste of residents’ money to launch a bi-election. “In two years, Cowan can run for mayor. Citizens will decide to vote for a mayor to carry out their vision or a council that supports that vision. (In the previous election) the citizens elected me and a number of councilors refuse to accept that. I am there to serve the taxpayer and do my job and I don’t run out of the room when someone upsets me. I am allowed to express myself and I will continue to do so. It is childish to run out like that. Citizens can’t believe that councilors are running out of a meeting that they are payed to attend.”

Pointe-Claire city councilor, Kelly Thorstad-Cullen, told The Suburban that her expectations of a council meeting is that it follows the by-laws: that respect and decorum are maintained. “I left at a certain moment in the December Council meeting because my professional expectations were not being upheld. There is no place for misinformation, hidden political agendas, or false accusations towards any elected official.”

Councilors, Paul Bissonette and Claude Cousineau were the only two councilors who did not participate in the walk out. “They went to persuade them (the other councilors) to come back,” Thomas told The Suburbann

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