(Chapais) After a “breathless” summer, marked by her management of the forest fire crisis, the mayor of Chapais Isabelle Lessard announces her resignation due to post-traumatic stress syndrome. The youngest mayor in the province also deplores the lack of resources available to elected officials in such situations.
“The hard weeks experienced last June during the forest fires had significant repercussions on my health and I must take the necessary time to heal,” she wrote in her resignation letter.
Mme Lessard had been off work since September 13, a break which should normally have allowed him “to come back strong,” she explains.
“However, realistically, from a medical and personal point of view, the best decision for my health as well as for the municipality of Chapais is that I make way for a new mayor,” maintains the young woman, who lives with dementia. anxiety since adolescence.
She became known by a large part of Quebec this summer for her daily management of forest fires, while a significant part of the approximately 1,500 inhabitants of Chapais were forced to evacuate. “Panic set in. People thought the fire was coming towards us too. Everyone was worried, including me,” the mayor explained to The Press in June.
Mme Lessard then worked an average of 16 hours a day. Twice a day, she spoke with officials from the Society for the Protection of Forests against Fire (SOPFEU) to find out how the fires were progressing. And at the start of the evening, she spoke to her fellow citizens to present them with a portrait of the situation via Facebook.
A system to change
His resignation will be effective as of November 17. There therefore remains a little less than two weeks before the end of his mandate, which suggests that an election will have to be organized in Chapais soon. In the municipal elections of November 2021, Isabelle Lessard was elected without opposition.
In a long publication on his social networks, Mme Lessard adds that “the summer we have just experienced has been breathless”.
“I am not the only one who has felt the consequences. There were probably some reasons that put me at higher risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, sure, but it’s high time to normalize these things. In 2023, I do not believe that it is up to us to change, but rather up to the system to do so,” she implores, not without emotion.
Despite everything, the outgoing mayor says she still wants to fight “many battles”, but “differently”, when the time comes. “I am aware that this announcement will disappoint some, and perhaps delight others, who knows, but one thing is certain, I will never thank enough all the citizens who believed in me,” she emphasizes. .