Overcoming a shaky start to her campaign, Pauline Fortin was narrowly elected to Ward 4 during the Oct. 24 civic election, beating incumbent Geoff McCausland by only 106 votes.
Candidate Alice Norquay trailed behind with a total of 160 votes, according to the city’s official results confirmed on Tuesday afternoon.
“I’m a little tired this morning,” Fortin told Sudbury.com by phone while collecting campaign signs on Tuesday morning, after staying up until 2 a.m. to get the full unofficial results.
“How can you fall asleep not knowing if you’ve got a job for the next four years on council or not? … It was quite the close call, there.”
Fortin’s campaign was one of the most unique during this year’s civic election due to the fact she announced in July that she was withdrawing from consideration in Ward 4.
At the time, she likened Greater Sudbury to the Titanic, the doomed ocean liner that hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. She said she’d rather not spend the next four years “banging my head against the wall.” Given the infrastructure deficit and city debt load, she said it was “like being the only applicant for a job as a deckhand on the Titanic – sure, you will get the job, but reporting for duty doesn’t change the location of the iceberg.”
A couple weeks later, Fortin announced that she was running after all, and would join her husband, Mark McKillop, who was seeking election in Ward 7. He came in second behind Natalie Labbée, who secured the four-way race in Ward 7 with 54.5 per cent of the vote.
“I’m so happy he’ll be able to help me out, because we will always be a team,” Fortin said of McKillop.
As for her upcoming term on Ward 4, Fortin said her prior pessimism hasn’t re-emerged.
“If there’s hope we can move forward, and I think that I do work well with others and I hope to get a good team going that we can all work together,” she said.
“We all want the same thing, we all want what’s best for the citizens of Greater Sudbury.”
The election was a tough slog, she said, adding that she currently walks with a limp and was at one point bitten by a dog. It could take as long as an hour to knock on 25 doors, she said.
“People want to talk, they want to be heard,” she said, adding this is a good thing and that she plans on doing her hardest to “work with others to bring this city forward.”
McCausland, who was first elected to city council in 2018, said this election was a lot more difficult than his first go around, due in part to Fortin fanning the flames of amalgamation.
“The people of Azilda feel that they are getting neglected and targeted, and theirs are the only roads not getting done, but that’s not the case,” McCausland said, adding that although roads in Azilda are, indeed, in poor shape, they’re rough everywhere.
The anti-amalgamation argument centres around the idea things were better in the outlying communities prior to the creation of the City of Greater Sudbury, which McCausland attributes to many things, such as provincial downloading, and that Sudbury has faced challenges as well.
“Those frustrations are still alive and well, and I’ve worked really hard to try and heal those wounds as much as possible and not to cut them back open every time that people are at the council chamber,” he said.
“It wasn’t a fun campaign,” McCausland added. “There was a lot of American-style toxic politics.”
It is also frustrating to have to back away from various ongoing projects, which McCausland said he hopes Fortin will carry through with. One example is silencing train whistles, which he has heard a great deal about at the doorstep as negatively affecting people’s lives.
Although disappointed by the tight election results in Ward 4, McCausland said he believes in the validity of the election and will not request a recount.
On the plus side, he said he’s happy to see mayor-elect Paul Lefebvre and councillor-elects Natalie Labbée (Ward 7) and Michel Parent (Ward 5) get in, whom he’s confident will be “positive forces” on council.
They’ll have a challenging go of things, McCausland said, pointing to climate change, inflation, the infrastructure deficit and a generational shift leaving everyone short of workers.
Given the divide between areas of Ward 4, such as the difference in demographics between The Donovan and Azilda, McCausland said next year’s review of ward boundaries will prove beneficial and help prevent some people from feeling disenfranchised.
“The No. 1 takeaway from my time on council was that the role is far more important than I ever imagined,” he said. “The decisions made around that table affect everyone in Greater Sudbury each and every day, and local politics deserve more attention than they usually get.”
McCausland also posted a message to Facebook highlighting his disappointment in the election and his acceptance of the election results.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
