Another elected official from the wave of renewal of the 2021 municipal elections is bowing out. Exhausted by the acrimonious debates and by the cities’ lack of resources to fulfill their mission, the mayor of Sherbrooke, Évelyne Beaudin, announced Friday that she will not seek a new mandate.
The 35-year-old elected official is the third emerging mayor to throw in the towel in three years, after France Bélisle (Gatineau) and Isabelle Lessard (Chapais), aged 23, who was the youngest municipal leader in Quebec. They are not the only ones to sound the alarm: since the 2021 elections, no less than 10% of municipal elected officials (around 800 out of 8,000) have resigned.
Évelyne Beaudin will remain in office until the next election, in the fall of 2025, but she no longer has the energy to continue the battle in a second mandate.
“I am used to difficult tasks. Normally the less pleasant sides [d’un emploi] must be compensated by the feeling that we are capable of accomplishing great things. But currently, we are not giving the necessary tools to local leaders so that they can truly do their work, not just in Sherbrooke, but throughout Quebec,” says Évelyne Beaudin at Duty.
This trained economist has observed over the past two and a half years that the exercise of power is a thankless task. Dissensions within the municipal council, the tone of exchanges on social networks and, above all, the City’s lack of resources to fulfill its responsibilities have undermined the mayor’s motivation.
She had to temporarily withdraw from her duties to take some rest, in October 2023, on the recommendation of her doctor. The tense climate at city hall continued during his gradual return earlier this year. A mediation process has been initiated.
“All these sacrifices I make with my life balance, are they really worth it? » asks the mayor. His answer is no, given the City’s limited resources in the face of growing responsibilities.
Essential services
There was a time when mayors were simple administrators. Municipalities took care of waste collection, snow removal, issuing building permits and paving streets.
This era is over: municipal elected officials must also manage homelessness, mental health, the integration of newcomers, improve public transport, develop cycle paths, adapt infrastructure to climate change, build social housing, supervise a town planning service and even find land on which to build schools.
Like other municipal elected officials, Évelyne Beaudin says she has noticed that cities do not have the resources to manage these countless missions. For example, Sherbrooke lacks housing, but can hardly authorize the construction of houses: the water purification plant is operating at full capacity. Despite repeated requests from the City, funding to improve wastewater treatment is still pending, underlines the mayor.
She believes that a broad reflection is necessary to rethink local democracy. She imagines a consultation on municipal governance as important as the Bouchard-Taylor commission of 2007 on “reasonable accommodations”, or the Parent commission of the 1960s on education.
A system in crisis
Fanny Tremblay-Racicot, professor of urban affairs at the National School of Public Administration (ENAP), also observes “a certain crisis of local democracy”.
Successive governments in Quebec have made progress since 2017. They signed a new fiscal pact with municipalities, adopted a national development and urban planning strategy and granted taxation powers to cities, recalls the professor.
Major irritants still remain: the sustainable mobility policy has been a “total failure” so far — the standoff between Quebec and the cities over the financing of public transport highlights gaps in governance, specifies Fanny Tremblay-Racicot.
Both the municipalities and the government “have their foot on the brake” in this matter. Both parties are hesitant to use existing taxation powers to finance public transport, underlines the professor. Minister Geneviève Guilbault therefore refuses to increase the tax on gasoline or on registration, or even to implement a kilometer tax.
A heavy burden
Quebec also has the power to force municipalities to create a form of fee to finance public transport. In addition, the government could take inspiration from certain American states which require large employers to have a travel management plan for their employees. The goal is to encourage the use of buses, the metro or bicycle to get to work.
Guy Chiasson, professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), believes that small municipalities would benefit from better support due to the growing complexity of managing a city.
“There are people who thought it was going to be simple and who find themselves facing a kind of mountain. It wears a lot and quite quickly to be constantly in the public eye and to carry such a weight almost alone,” says the municipal politics expert.