In Vaudreuil-Dorion, a city located about forty kilometers west of downtown Montreal, “the shit is stuck,” summed up Mayor Guy Pilon in an interview. Since January, the three women members of the municipal council have decided to sit as independents. Since March, they have been expelled from the advisory committees, on which only men sit.
Everyone agrees on one thing: they don’t have the same vision of municipal politics.
It is by the same letter with their three names for recipients, on February 24, that the councilors Jasmine Sharma, Karine Lechasseur and Diane Morin learned of the decision “to reshuffle the various committees of the Council”, is it written.
“Given that you have mentioned a few times that certain decisions go against your values that we do not know, the current members of the Parti de l’action de Vaudreuil-Dorion have decided to continue with the established and current values. of our political party […]. »
The letter, signed by Mayor Guy Pilon, includes a list of 15 committees on which only male city council members will now sit.
Is that how he sees it? Mr. Pilon says he does not remember if he used the words “girls” or “women”.
But beyond the semantics, does he perceive that the misunderstanding stems from a gendered dispute?
“It became that because they decided it,” replies Mr. Pilon, mayor of Vaudreuil-Dorion for 18 years and who is in his fifth term.
The February letter expelling the councilors from the committees evokes a joint decision by the Vaudreuil-Dorion Action Party. In an interview with La Presse, Mr. Pilon nevertheless assures that beyond the elections, “there has never been a party line”.
In the 2021 municipal elections, the mayor and seven of the eight municipal councilors were elected by acclamation. (The candidate for the mayor’s team won the last council seat.)
Twenty years ago, Vaudreuil-Dorion had 16,000 inhabitants. It now has more than 43,000.
The mayor and the three independent councilors explain that the dispute broke out in 2022, around the construction project in Vaudreuil-Dorion of Walmart’s first order processing center in Quebec. An investment of 100 million from the company, which the mayor sees with a very favorable eye.
Karine Lechasseur, she was opposed to it. “It is located one kilometer from the future hospital, which makes it a strategic site”, in his opinion.
She explains that she does not have the same vision of economic development as the mayor, while fully understanding that in a democracy, the majority wins.
What she doesn’t accept is that there is no room for debate, that she feels that what is expected of her is, she says, “” Come sit, listen to us, get some experience.” »
Diane Morin also denounces the absence of debates. When she sat on the mayor’s team, everything was decided in caucus, she says. On city council, she continued, if a councilor dissented on a given vote, the mayor “turned navy blue.”
However, when she does not agree with a proposal, it is important for her, she explains, that the citizens know that she is dissenting, that she did not vote for it, but that in a democracy, the majority wins.
Independent councilor Jasmine Sharma also criticizes the mayor for “his rigidity”, “his lack of openness”, which has just culminated in the expulsion of the three independent councilors from all committees, “except the planning advisory committee because it It’s a mandatory committee that has a resolution that I sit on it for two years.”
To this, Mayor Guy Pilon indicates that the committees in question are not “decision-making”, that decisions are made at the municipal council and that councilors have access to all documentation.
On the contrary, according to Jasmine Sharma, these committees “are not just advisory. The debates happen there, the directions are taken there.”
In his opinion, the debate is all the richer if people with diverse ideas and opinions contribute their point of view and are able to identify “blind spots”.
For Ms. Lechasseur, Mr. Pilon’s way of doing things “is old politics. We don’t have the same concept of democracy.”
“It seems like [a fight] between men against women, but [a woman]… that’s who I am. »
Mr. Pilon takes the situation badly.
“There is no longer any bond of trust between the six men and the three women,” summarizes Mr. Pilon.
Councilor François Séguin says in an interview he is “very comfortable” with the expulsion of women from the committees, which he insists are only advisory. “They’re the ones who shut themselves out,” he says, adding that he doesn’t see how he could sit with them after all that’s been said.
“I am in my ninth term, I have always operated with respect, I also expect respect. »
He adds that if a man had been part of the group of those who became independent, “he would have suffered the same fate”, that it is not a question of gender.
For his part, Paul Dumoulin, councilor for 32 years, says that since he knows Mayor Guy Pilon, he has never seen him shout “or put his fist on the table”.
Since women councilors are elected in the same way as councillors, how can we justify that they no longer sit on committees? To this, Mr. Dumoulin, like Mr. Séguin, replies that it would be impossible for them to still be there, given that the independent councilors have said they no longer trust the mayor and the councillors.1
The independent councilors denounce the fact that for the mayor, decisions must be taken quickly, without dissension during municipal councils.
Mayor Guy Pilon concludes by saying his desire to “continue to move the City forward”.
“They would like us to chat until there is a consensus. But at some point, [by dint of] putting water in his wine, it is no longer wine. »
