JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1019 Report
Though the official start to municipal election campaigns across Quebec is still a little more than a month away, the two mayoral candidates in St. Lazare are already laying out their pitches to voters.
Incumbent Mayor Geneviève Lachance will face off against first-time challenger Marie Morin, an agriculturalist and business owner. No other mayoral candidates have stepped forward. This will be the town’s first competitive mayoral race since the 2017 election, as Lachance was acclaimed in 2021.
As the summer winds down, Lachance said she’s looking to hear from voters, inviting residents to “kitchen table meetings” to discuss the town’s direction under her leadership, her vision for the future and the challenges that lie ahead. And there will be no shortage of challenges facing the municipality in the next few years, she explained in an interview last week.
“There are so many different things that we can see coming up,” Lachance said.
These challenges include balancing population growth with forest preservation and water management, as well as funding municipal infrastructure and improving public transit. The arrival of the new Vaudreuil-Soulanges Hospital, slated to open in 2027, is also expected to pose challenges.
“That’s a big thing that will have a big impact on St. Lazare,” Lachance said, referring to the hospital. “So we have to be able to plan properly and have a vision of what we want to see and set that vision into a plan.”
Lachance said her chief asset heading into the election is her experience in municipal politics — the past four years as mayor and the previous four as a councillor. She is someone “who knows how the law works, how municipalities work (and) how government works.”
Lachance added that she plans to share more details of her vision for the future of St. Lazare publicly in the coming weeks.
Challenger seeks to encourage voter participation
As for Morin, she pointed to several reasons why she threw her hat into the ring, among them was not wanting a repeat of the 2021 election where Lachance and six councillors won their seats by acclamation.
“I believe in democracy, and democracy only happens if there are elections,” Morin said. “The last thing I want is for people to be acclaimed.”
As the owner of Serre St. Laz, a small-scale vegetable growing operation specializing in hot pepper production, Morin feels local businesses face too much red tape, which hampers the town’s economic viability.
“As a business entrepreneur, my way of looking at it is: Why do we have a butcher who lives in St. Lazare and has his shop in Vaudreuil? Why do we have a baker in St. Lazare that has his shop in Vaudreuil? Or a chocolatier that lives in St. Lazare with a shop in Vaudreuil?”
Her shop is located in neighbouring St. Clet.
Morin would also make environmental health a priority with a focus on forest management that sees dead or diseased trees removed more quickly. She mentioned that she would also be keen to see the town implement measures to prevent potential wildfires from spreading, such as using fuel breaks — a man-made clearing of land between forested areas designed to contain wildfires, which Morin recalled she frequently witnessed in her youth in Alberta.
Morin had told The 1019 Report back in March that she planned to knock on the doors of the more than 7,000 residences in the town to meet voters. That plan was paused due to a notice from Élections Québec informing her that the campaign period begins in September.
“I’m a rule-follower,” she said with a laugh, adding that she’ll pick up where she left off on Sept. 19, the official start day of the election campaign.
Residents interested in running for mayor or for council have between Sept. 19 and Oct. 3 to submit their nomination to the town. Municipal elections across Quebec are scheduled for Nov. 2.