Paul Bissonnette

By Chelsey St-Pierre
The Suburban

A majority vote by seven city councillors requesting that the Quebec Municipal Affairs Department intervene with an analysis and formulate an action plan to help restore order at the City of Pointe-Claire took place last Tuesday at a special council meeting. The councillors who voted in favour are calling for an overall review of conditions that have led to a hostile political environment and the implementation of solutions to enable the city to better serve its constituents.

Bruno Tremblay was the only city councillor to hold out alongside PC mayor Tim Thomas voting against the resolution tabled by PC city councilor Kelly Thorstad-Cullen and seconded by PC city councillor Paul Bissonnette. “Our public council meetings are lacking leadership and do not meet the standards of professionalism,” Thorstad-Cullen said to The Suburban.

Thomas has repeatedly been accused of abusing his power as speaker at council meetings. “They’ve called for my resignation, they’ve walked out of meetings and now they are calling for this. This is part of a series of events to delegitimize me. The hostility never comes from me. I encourage everyone to watch the webcast to make their own determinations,” Thomas said to The Suburban.

“Unfortunately but not unexpectedly and true to form the mayor made it difficult. He could have simply acknowledged that Pointe-Claire city governance is dysfunctional and cooperated with council’s desire to find a way forward. Instead, he and Councillor Tremblay decided to go full ballistic and accuse the other seven members of council of simply playing politics. If this resolution is just political theatre, the seven of us who voted in favour will look like foolish children. So what are Councillor Tremblay and Mayor Thomas so upset about? That the concerns of the seven might actually have a basis in reality?” PC city councillor Brent Cowan told The Suburban. Councillor Eric Stork told The Suburban that if council was truly the problem, Thomas should welcome this solution as it would serve to prove his notion.

Thomas admits that he has reservations and concerns regarding the proposed evaluation process, but remains optimistic at the possibility that it might generate solutions. “Everybody thinks its a kumbaya, but what this does is give municipal affairs an opportunity to hand over the powers of the city to the provincial government. This is a mistake, in my opinion. It’s one thing to help us get along better but to chance a giveaway of authority is an overstep. If this gets my council to finally sit down and work with me as mayor instead of throwing obstacles at me, great. I don’t have the vote to get what I want but I would like to be heard. This might give us an opportunity to review and improve.” n